By Zach Wakefield
Birdbox, the newest big Netflix original movie, most notably starring Sandra Bullock, has been an unstoppable cultural force of the past month.
Plastered all over your Facebook timeline, deeper meanings of the story popping up on your recommended YouTube playlist, the never ending wall of Birdbox challenge videos, not seeing anything about the movie has been almost difficult a feat as those not trying to look at the mysterious entity that shows up in the film itself.
For as original a setup the movie has, it follows a distinct formula of horror films the past few years, such as Hush and A Quiet Place, where the weakness of those trying to survive has much to do with a common body function, this time it is surviving with a lack of vision.
Not being able to look at the monster provides a great motive for keeping the entity in the movie unknown and omnipresently lurking throughout the film.
The movie does a fantastic job of keeping things constantly in motion, with little filler moments in the film, the story doesn’t waste time and immediately grabs your attention from the start.
In fact the biggest problem with Birdbox is not the way it is presented or the initial setup, but where it decides to take sudden turns in the plot and some of it’s underwritten side characters, who are somewhat stuck to their personality traits introduced to them and act as cannon fodder towards the entity.
Certain scenes, such as a car the group relies on being stolen, or the wandering away from a boat to get supplies, always act like a more intense scene is being setup, with it ending as nothing more than a small five minute tangent from the main story, as if the film is to afraid to fully commit to one plot or the other.
The story switches back and forth between the start of the events and a eventual ending 5 years later into the story, but oddly skips between the two timelines with little reason other than to break up the scenes from dragging, with it’s eventual ending seeming way to abrupt and a little too good to be true compared to the hopelessness the story teases.
Despite these points, Birdbox is by no means a bad movie, and while it never reaches it’s true potential, the acting is strong, it’s plot original enough, and the story is fast paced to carry the appeal of the movie to a big audience.
While Birdbox may be a bit messy in its execution, its setup and the unique ideas it forges is something you just can’t look away from.