#1: Bird Box

So far, people are lamenting it as "The poor man's A Quiet Place", but it certainly has a better setup and element of mystery than that movie to me.

In retrospect, it's like A Quiet Place + Annihilation, though nowhere near as impactful as the latter.

There's also a difference between "Aliens are here, shut up," and "Mass hallucinations are making everyone go insane, so maybe don't look around your surroundings."

Nothing in movies is wholly original, after all.

Happy to see Trevante Rhodes in things again ("Again", as if he stopped working. I simply didn't see The Predator or 12 Strong) as the most reasonable and survival-minded person in the group outside of the white man everyone thought was an asshole but was reasonable about not letting randos into the house.

The idea of these two people going on the run with kids they found in the aftermath is pretty interesting, as well as the tiny bits of humanity they show the children (Who are, for the longest, just named Boy and Girl) just wish it was a better movie.





Fun fact; You don't see the monsters. The director relied upon people's imaginations being frightening enough to conjure something up, but it doesn't work. People are bigger antagonists than the monsters - Which is fine, but in that case, eschew the monsters entirely!

"Oh, but then it would be a bland thriller movie" - and what is this? If you think about it, the monsters are already a non-entity besides a few shadows. Seeing the movie through that lense makes it a bit more tolerable.

But does it *really* have a better set up? Let's review.

The monsters, unseen, will prompt people into being violent or committing suicide - unless they're totally evil people who think the destruction is beautiful. Think corporate America, and - and the movie says this - People who have escaped from mental hospitals whose views of right and wrong are warped enough so that this doesn't affect them.

It's an interesting idea, definitely. Again, needs a bit better execution. Or a full fledged show.