The Box

Sci-fi movies such as The Incredible Shrinking Man, I Am Legend, and Somewhere in Time sprang from the visionary mind of writer Richard Matheson, who also wrote the terrific short story Button, Button on which The Box is based. Unfortunately, writer/director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) has seriously botched the provocative philosophical concept at the center of the tale. Cameron Diaz stars as Norma Lewis, a teacher who lives in an affluent suburb with her NASA engineer/optics expert/inventor husband, Arthur (James Marsden), and their son, Walter (Sam Oz Stone). Soon after Arthur is passed over for promotion to astronaut and Norma learns that their son will no longer receive a discount on his school tuition, an ominous stranger named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) drops a box containing a big red button on their doorstep, returning later with a disturbing proposition: if they push the button, $1 million, tax free, will be theirs—but the action will kill an unknown someone. Kelly makes the stakes for choosing to commit murder much too low to be believable—the middle-class family is hardly in dire financial straits—and instead of delving into the psychological or existential ramifications of the mysterious device or the Lewises' decision, the film veers off into the supernatural, bringing in zombie-like people with nosebleeds and a murky government conspiracy. Masquerading as allegory, The Box is pretentious poppycock. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “Richard Matheson: In His Own Words” interview with the author (5 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is audio commentary by director Richard Kelly, a “Grounded in Reality” featurette on Kelly's inspiration (11 min.), “Music Video Prequels” surveillance montages (9 min.), a “Visual Effects Revealed” featurette (4 min.), and a bonus digital copy of the film. Bottom line: a decent extras package on the Blu-ray release for this otherwise disappointing thriller.] (S. Granger)