The
year is 1976, NASA is about to land the Viking probe on Mars, and Nora
(Cameron Diaz) and Arthur (James Marsden) Lewis are woken up early one
morning by someone leaving a box at their front door.
Inside the box is
a "button unit" – another box with a big button on top under a locked
glass dome - and a card telling them that a Mr Steward will be arriving
at 5pm to explain.
He arrives, turns out to
only have half a face, and explains away: If they press the button,
someone they've never met will die and they will be given a million
dollars. If they don't press the button, nothing will happen. They have
twenty four hours to decide before he returns for the box.
On
examination, the box isn't connected to anything, and it's not like
they don't need the money: school tuition fees are going up, Nora needs
an operation on her foot which was crippled when she was a teenager,
and Arthur's hopes of a big promotion at his NASA job have just been
dashed.
But what if Steward is a serial killer just looking for an
excuse to murder someone? Why did a man across town just murder his
wife while his daughter was upstairs locked in a bathroom? What is the
NSA doing tracking and seemingly helping Mr. Steward? And why is
everyone getting nosebleeds all of a sudden?
For the first
three-quarters or so this is an extremely chilling film, full of icy
foreboding and unsettling moments that are all the more disturbing for
never quite adding up. But then Kelly piles on
yet another mood-killing mix of quasi-science, mysticism and references
to "eternal damnation".
Fortunately he pulls proceedings back from the
brink with a final few scenes that return to the unexplained unease of
the first hour, but the damage has been done - he is probably the only
person who thinks the most interesting thing inside this box was the
instructions. Blu Ray Special Features
Aside from the video footage looking absolutely immaculate on Blu
Ray, there are also a healthy number of Special Features availible on
the Blu Ray edition. Included this time around (no doubt a "Directors
Cut" isn't far away) is a rather helpful Audio commentary, plus a bunch
of HD featurtettes including "The Box - Grounded In Reality", "Richard
Mattheson - In His Own Words". There are some also some clever
Music Video prequels - a very unique and cool idea indeed, plus some
secrets behind Visual effects (mainly the weird half-faced man)
revealed.
Conclusion:
Movie 70% Extras: 70%
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