I finally got round to seeing The Box the other day, at the Odeon Mezzanine in Leicester Square, where the screens are approximately the size of a sock drawer. If I’d waited a couple of months longer I could have rented it and watched it in my own sock drawer, but it’s nice to get out every now and again isn’t it?
So you know when you get up, eat breakfast, go to work, do the same old routine that you do day in, day out, but then at lunchtime everyone explodes and the office launches itself to a distant galaxy and the photocopier becomes the supreme being? Well that’s what The Box is like. It starts off as an unassuming 1970s-set drama, and trundles along like that for about 20 minutes, then it gets a little bit weird, then with very little warning it goes so absolutely crazy mental bonkers that you could give it a job at the RAC, stick it on BBC News and call it Crackers Patel.
Now I quite like it when a film pulls the rug from under your feet like that, and my interest levels peaked when I realised I was going to see something I most certainly wasn’t expecting. I won’t tell you what it is but if you look hard enough I'm sure you could find out.
THE GUY WHO GAVE THEM THE BOX IS BEING CONTROLLED BY MARTIANS! YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING DID YOU?
However I also quite like my weirdness to make some vague kind of sense, and for events to connect with each other in a way my tiny brain can follow, which is a) why I can’t be doing with David Lynch and b) why I ended up not liking The Box.
Director Richard Kelly cooked up a devilishly delicious dinner with Donnie Darko, but shat in the custard with Southland Tales. Now, with The Box, he’s filled the apple pie with pencils, and that’s just stupid. Marks for originality I suppose, and I look forward to the next serving, but I’ll be taking a packet of biscuits with me just in case.
In retrospect that was an ill-advised extended metaphor, but I’ve written it now and I can’t just delete it can I?
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