THE MOVIE BEHIND THE MEME

The biggest meme of 2018 (and 2019, so far)?

The Bird Box challenge.

For the past month it’s been taking the internet by storm, and has fast become one of the most popular – and potentially dangerous – memes to go mainstream. And it’s only January.

So what’s the deal?

Purportedly one of the biggest films of 2018 if Netflix is to be believed, “Bird Box” is the latest attempt from the streaming giant to try and rock the system.

Bird Box is a horror/thriller directed by Susanne Bier, starring an A-list cast of Hollywood pros such as John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, Tom Hollander and, of course, Sandra Bullock, playing the lead.

Machine Gun Kelly even makes a pointless appearance in this movie.

Bullock plays a pregnant, middle-aged woman, Malorie Hayes, with severe commitment issues. While out on a routine doctor’s appointment with her sister, the two begin noticing other people committing mass suicide in public, in broad daylight, for seemingly no reason.

Unbeknownst to them, this is the beginning of the apocalypse: a world-ending event caused by some invisible force.

Those who catch a glimpse of these apparently invisible monsters find themselves unable to look away and eventually, turning homicidally and suicidally insane.

After Bullock escapes to a nearby house with a group of pedestrians, she and the others hunker down to wait out the storm. Unfortunately, that proves more difficult with a baby on the way.

The crew figure out they can navigate the outside world by wearing blindfolds at all times, thus spawning the now infamous slew of Bird Box challenge memes.

But does this movie live up to the hype?

The short answer is a simple “No.”

While 45 million people may have tuned into Netflix to watch this film, which would make this movie the highest-grossing film released last year (even topping “Black Panther”), it’s a good thing it wasn’t released in theaters, because it would’ve died in the first two weeks.

This is just another run-of-the-mill horror movie, no better or worse than any Blumhouse horror flick released in the past few years.

Speaking of Blumhouse, the budget for this movie is certainly low enough to be a Jason Blum venture.

In fact, half of this movie could’ve been shot in the woods around the MHCC campus.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the limited budget more than shows, as there’s only about five locations in the whole film, the majority of them inside suburban homes and dense, green forests.

It’s as if the writers purposefully crafted a story specifically to cost the least amount of money possible. Isn’t it convenient that the big scary movie monster is invisible and is never actually revealed?

Guess that means you only have to spend your special effects budget on pitiful amounts of CGI blood and a couple car crashes.

The rest of the film’s writing is nothing abominable, but it’s not Shakespeare, either. There’s a hint of a really interesting story going on somewhere in the background, but unfortunately those intriguing concepts are hidden behind stale character interactions, pointless conflict, and flat character development.

The main flaw however, is the immense lack of tension, which is obviously pretty critical in a horror/thriller. While the cast members might be pros, the material they were given was just too minimal, and it all ends up feeling like they slept-walked through most of this movie. The exception is Bullock, who attempts to carry the whole film on her shoulders, but unfortunately can’t quite handle it all.

Inevitably, the viewer just doesn’t care about what happens to any of the characters, because the characters don’t seem to care much, either.

Also, whoever was in charge of editing this movie needs to learn a thing or two about pacing. The story takes place over a five-year period, but constantly flashes back to the beginning of the incident, leaving no great mysteries to be solved at the end of the film and removing any decent sense of story progression.

With all that being said, Bird Box isn’t a horrible movie – just painfully average.

There are a few fun scenes scattered throughout, and the primary concept of the film is intriguing enough to keep you watching till the end. Bullock does a fine job, as to be expected, and some of the side characters are fairly entertaining to watch at times.

But, overall, I’d say you’re better off watching people drive blindfolded on YouTube while they attempt the Bird Box challenge. 2/5 stars.