When this movie came out I just didn't want to watch it because it really felt like group pressure, everybody and their moms were watching Bird Box with Sandra Bullock, similar to Squid Games that I still haven't watch. Its so different for me when a movies premier on cinema and does great than when a movie just goes viral on internet, specially because on Netflix and then everybody is talking about it that social media really get you, that annoys me and push me away. I finally took some time to watch Bird Box after I stumble to Bird Box Barcelona while browsing IMDB, at first thought it was a sequel but its actually a Spin Off, similar to what Apocalypse Z (2024) is to World War Z (2013), so I decided to sit down and give it a try, I got to say its a 50/50 for me since the premise might sound both awesome and stupid at the same time, depending on who you ask but who scare must it be to be blindfolded on purpose because you need to move to another destination although there are monsters on the way you can't watch because you go crazy and kill yourself, something like when Medusa turn you into stone once you look at her.
The movie is neither amazing or terrible, its also not well balance but its the suspense and parts of the movie left to the imagination that I think makes it a good watch, probably why it became such a good movie to watch for a lot of people. I have come to the conclusion that movies that go viral from Streaming platform are not would not be world wide hits if they were on Cinema, the main reason for this is because of the amount of eye balls watching that same movie, there are way more people who stream movies online from platforms like Netflix than those who go to the theaters, but putting all the social media nonsense aside the movie does have some good acting, proper production and its an interesting different approach than most end of the world movies on the last decade.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2737304/
- Platform: Netflix
Rottentomatoes Rating
If you haven't seen the movie you might be asking yourself then how do humans became aware of the monsters themself? here is where the movie has similarities to when people are actually bite by infected or zombies, what ever is you favorite flavor of apocalypse trigger. This time its not by biting but by watching, all people had to do was to watch at one of the monsters to intermediately loose it and become suicidal, some even failing at the first attempt to kill themself and right away looking for their second chance to end their life. It is the case of when Malorie and her sister Jessica witness people suddenly killing themselves during very chaotic scenes across the city, but its Jessica herself who sees something that makes her eyes glass over before she crashes their car and walks into the path of an oncoming truck, just like crashing was not enough to end her life, she just went to her second chance to achieve her death. Through all this scenes the movie doesn't feel like relying on CGI overload but instead use a more potent strategy to generate the deep horror feel, audience imagination.
As it was expected through the entire movie Sandra Bullock carries the entire cast and the movie on her shoulders, everything goes around her, I would say probably one of her strongest dramatic performances in years, similar to Never Let Go (2024) was for Halle Berry although not any of this two movies were great hits outside of streaming platforms, still great dramatic performances. Over all in my opinion even at looking stupid most of the actors on the movie did a good job, Sandra Bullock felt very natural at every moment during the movie, from been happy to angry, to scared to death, she also goes through a transformation as any other human during such hard time from an emotionally distant mother to a hardened survivor who will do anything to protect her children even when her methods seem harsh or too primitive at times. I have to praise her work because during most of the movie she have this rawness to her performance that makes you believe she is actually living through this nightmare, what makes me remember the first "A Quiet Place" a true living nightmare, specially in the river scenes where her fear and determination to go through any obstacle feels very real, and her almost commands or orders she gave to her children gives you the feeling of "sht is real no bs.
The sanctuary is an open air community full of birds with both blind and sighted survivors who have created such a peaceful environment. There is one aspect that I mention above, how Malorie waited to get to the sanctuary to name her children. The girl was named Olympia after her birth mother, to make things clear Malorie biological children was only "Boy" who she named Tom after the man who rescue her, and "Girl" she adopted after her biological mother died. The fact that she named the children after finally arriving to the sanctuary wrap things up quite nice finally embracing her role as their mother and allowing herself to build up an emotional attachment she have been avoiding all this time.
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