THE BOX (2009). The Box is the latest picture from writer-director Richard Kelly, who with the cult fave Donnie Darko proved that he’s one filmmaker able to think outside the box (ouch). Adapting Richard Matheson’s short story “Button, Button,” Kelly has fashioned a complex tale out of a simple premise: A solemn stranger (Frank Langella) hands a married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) a box and informs them that if they press the button on top, someone they don’t know will die but they’ll be rewarded with one million dollars for their action. It’s not spoiling anything to reveal that the button does indeed get pushed (otherwise, it would be one helluva short flick), but no viewer can be expected to predict the myriad directions in which the movie travels. At its heart a fable about the moral choices we make and accepting the consequences of our actions, the film remains an original even as it touches upon other literary and cinematic sources to enhance its appeal: Sartre’s No Exit plays a part, as does the writing of Arthur C. Clarke (the latter in turn leading to a visual sequence worthy of 2001: A Space Odyssey, itself based on Clarke’s story “The Sentinel”). Admittedly, The Box doesn’t hold up as a morning-after title, since reflecting on its events will reveal a fair share of plotholes. But both its imagination and its ambition sprint far beyond anything offered in the creatively neutered (but more commercially successful) likes of, say, 2012 or Law Abiding Citizen, and Kelly doesn’t cheat in the final reels in a grasping effort to placate timid moviegoers. Conscientious in its actions yet radical in its approach, The Box demonstrates that, in this instance anyway, it’s hip to be square.
The only DVD extras are a 5-minute interview with Matheson and theatrical trailers.
Movie: ***
Extras: *1/2
EVERYBODY’S FINE (2009). After spending the better part of a decade mugging to the rafters in such films as The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Analyze That, Robert De Niro opts to underplay in the family melodrama Everybody’s Fine. But don’t let this opposite approach sucker you in: De Niro isn’t low-key as much as he’s merely lethargic, and it’s yet one more dismissive turn from an actor who once owned a major chunk of seminal ’70s cinema. De Niro stars as Frank Goode, a widower who, disappointed that all four of his grown children have canceled plans to come visit him, decides instead to surprise all of them on their own respective doorsteps. He first visits David, an artist living in New York, but David never turns up at his own apartment. Undeterred, Frank presses forward, visiting in rapid succession his daughter Amy (Kate Beckinsale), an advertising executive, his son Robert (Sam Rockwell), a symphony musician, and his other daughter Rosie (Drew Barrymore), a Vegas entertainer. It turns out that all three are hiding things from their dad about David as well as about themselves. Awkward and ill-matched, the members of the big-name cast fail to impress, although Rockwell comes closest to making his character something more than a dullard. Dramatic crises are played out in predictable fashion, with the one deviation from formula a climactic scene in which Frank imagines his offspring looking like children but arguing with him like adults proving to be disastrous. Although a remake of a 1990 Italian import starring Marcello Mastroianni, this poorly paced drama also has much in common, both thematically and narratively, with a Jack Nicholson gem from a few years back. Ultimately, though, this is less About Schmidt and more about nothing much.
DVD extras include seven deleted and extended scenes, and a 10-minute piece on the making of Paul McCartney’s theme song, “(I Want to) Come Home.”
Movie: **
Extras: *1/2
2012 (2009). The perfect follow-up for those viewers who were simply crushed when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wrapped up at a too-brief 142 minutes, 2012 contributes another 158 minutes to the cause of wham-bam-thank-you-man cinema. No effect is too preposterous, no sound too deafening, and no cliché too enormous to be left out of the latest end-of-the-world effort from director Roland Emmerich, who there but for the grace of God goes Michael Bay. 2012 brushes through the fuzzy science – basically, the sun is responsible for Earth’s impending doom, predicted by the Mayans way back when – in order to devote more of its time to its inane assortment of stock characters and the CGI effects that will wow some but fail to move others (they alternate between impressive and obvious). John Cusack is the all-American protagonist, a standard underachiever who must rise from Everyman to Superman in order to save not only himself but his fractured family unit (ex-wife, distant son, chipper daughter). There’s also the well-meaning scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the duplicitous politician (Oliver Platt), the self-sacrificing U.S. president (Danny Glover), the conspiracy-theory nut (Woody Harrelson, whose zealotry was a lot more fun to watch in Zombieland), and so on. Even “master of disaster” Irwin Allen liked to shake up the status quo in such films as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, but Emmerich has no imagination: His A-listers live, his support players die. Worse, he subscribes to a rigid ethical code usually reserved for slasher films and fundamentalist diatribes: Likable characters tempted by the flesh suffer mean-spirited ends, as does anyone who dares to stand in the way of traditional family values. Such sermonizing takes a back seat, of course, to action sequences which run on the same loop: A vehicle misses getting crushed by only this much. It’s marginally exciting the first 10 times it happens, less so the subsequent 40 times it’s shown. Then again, practically everything about the picture is lazy and uninspired, making 2012 just one more blockbuster that’s strictly by the numbers.
DVD extras include audio commentary by Emmerich and his co-writer, Harald Kloser; five deleted scenes; an alternate ending; a 10-minute featurette on Emmerich; and the music video for Adam Lambert’s “Time for Miracles.”
Movie: *1/2
Extras: **
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (2009). In tackling Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book, writer Spike Jonze and his co-scripter Dave Eggers had a difficult problem to overcome. Because Sendak’s book is so slender – certainly not enough to fill a 100-minute movie – the pair had to build on characterizations, alter some connecting tissues, and concoct entirely new scenes. The end result isn’t a bastardization of the literary classic, but neither is it a further canonization of the acclaimed source. It’s the sort of film that over time will continue to be poked, prodded, discussed, dismissed and/or deified. But ignored? Never. Max Records plays young Max, a troubled child not very adept at dealing with anger or frustration. After a spat with his single mom (Catherine Keener), Max bolts from the house, soon stumbling on a body of water where a small boat awaits him. Max sails away and eventually arrives at an island inhabited by large, furry beasts who alternate between sounding like confused children and neurotic adults. Max especially bonds with Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), the most temperamental of the monsters, but he enjoys spending time with all these behemoths as they play various games and generally have a good time. But petty squabbles erupt among the beasts, and Max, who’s been made their leader, clearly doesn’t always have the answers or advice that the others hope to hear. Technically, Where the Wild Things Are is a stunning achievement, and the beasts – a combination of costumes and CGI – particularly look astonishing. But there’s a reason why Sendak’s book runs only a few dozen pages, and by blowing up the story, Jonze has in effect stripped it of much of its wide-eyed wonder. Both the book and the movie are children’s tales sporting a dark underbelly, but the film version, unlike its predecessor, is often too literal, resulting in a suffocating atmosphere that further undermines the simplicity of the tale. Like the wild things inhabiting Max’s world, it’s fascinating but also lumbering, and – to paraphrase The Troggs – it’s unlikely to make everyone’s heart sing.
The only DVD extras are 15 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage and theatrical trailers.
Movie: **1/2
Extras: *1/2
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2010.
