#cinemaa

Shut the hell up but I’m going to do this. This movie has been spoken of so many times it’s honestly annoying. But I’m a freaking film nerd so I must. This will contain spoilers.

Plot

Alright, honestly I thought that the overall plot of Bird Box was pretty good. There is a pregnant woman with emotional trauma in a fucked up dystopian society where if you open your eyes outside you either immediately commit suicide or you go mad and begin trying to force others to see the creature.

There is a low level explanation or theory that is given that basically it is the same thing as judgement day from all of the world’s religions. And you see your worse fear, temptations, etc. all at once and then become overwhelmed with extreme depression.

It’s kinda surface level but an interesting concept nonetheless. I think many people on the internet are ruining it by trying to look for further theories and explanations when there honestly wasn’t much to be expanded on. It’s a scary and unexplainable thing and I think that’s how it’s supposed to be to induce more fear.

That being said, there were elements of the plot that I hated they were so surface level. For instance, there was hardly any character development in anyone. Wow, Melonie was hard and cold and after a horrible apocalypse she opens up her heart to Tom, who dies, and later finally gives her children cheesy af names. So “sweet” but ultimately predictable and within five whole years a person’s character would change even more WITHOUT the element of constant terror and survival.

Continuity

I hated how this movie’s timeline was done. This movie would have been much better presented as a TV series instead of a movie. There were scenes that could have definitely been expanded on into more depth and laid out better.

Also, the whole switching timelines thing was done horribly. The first flash forward to the river scene is done after twenty minutes and then the audience can basically assume that everyone else in the freaking house will die and that they would have their babies because wow there are two kids on the boat and two pregnant women beforehand.

This layout was very tedious then and then took away the element of surprise because it wasn’t if x character will die but when x character will die.

If the movie was presented as a series, then it could have been done chronologically and then have brought more to plot holes such as:

-How did Tom and Melonie survive after that incident in the house? Let alone for five freaking years?? They had to raise two children with little supplies and they didn’t even have a car to get anywhere?

-What happened at the grocery store, if the people were out by the loading dock, couldn’t they have gone around to the front of the store to get the people or were they all trapped there?

-Did literally no one else good survive for five freaking years that Tom and Melonie would’ve ran into?

-What happened to the two teens who stole the car?

Also, they could have added the elements of deeper meaning such as more character development and backgrounds. Like honestly, we don’t even know that much about Tom’s personality or background, excluding that one bit about his sister.

Cinematography

This element was done really well which is the main reason why I think people are obsessed with the movie, even if it’s subconsciously.

The different shots were done especially well. There was an amazing balance between wide shots (like bird’s eye on the river and as Melonie was running through the forest with the creature chasing her) and the POV shots through the blindfolds were really well made because they didn’t glorify it whatsoever and showed just how little they could see. Also, the Dutch action shots during the fight scenes added a slight element of unpredictablity (you know the one the plot butchered) and instability, which was good in this movie.

And color balance and angles and movement were all just fabulous for the type of movie. The fact of some of the scariest scenes being done in daylight is so unsettling and it’s really cool.

There was a few times I caught where the positioning of the characters could have been done better in my opinion but ultimately I can’t name an example because they were mostly done well.

I loved the cut scenes with the sensor on the car also, holy heck that was wild and the beeping.

Scenery/Acting/Special Effects

I’m trying not to make this too long, lmao I’ve already been writing this for an hour, so I’m putting these all into one to try to make them shorter. In this movie, these elements were important but there wasn’t much to them in my opinion so.

The scenery is extremely amazing with the details of bodies everywhere and dropped objects by people and it overall gives this abandoned feeling.

The woods and houses were really realistic. Some places like the abandoned camp/hospital place off the river? That was the only sort of surreal area and I can’t tell if that was done on purpose or not.

Acting was great for the most part, I mean Sandra Bullock is in it so I’m not surprised.

The child actors are amazing OH MY GOD give them an Oscar. The little kids so so much emotion and I was mostly impressed by them.

Danielle MacDonald’s portrayal of Olympia wasn’t great in my opinion because she didn’t seem sincere a lot of the time but eh give and take.

Sometimes, you can’t tell if the acting is actually bad though or if it was just a poorly written line or character so.

As with most movies, there were a lot times where they were way too expressive and there are a lot of memes based around this....yeah...oof...

Special Effects done fairly well. I was pretty bone chilled from the start with the lady smashing her head into the wall and the full getting hit by the bus was done better than in Mean Girls lmao.

I think their wounds healed too fast occasionally and also the blood in scenes with stabbing and the pool under the door in the supermarket was ehh. I think people forget how hard it is to actually puncture human flesh, let alone get the weapon back out afterwards.

It was a very graphic movie overall. Not horribly done.

Last Note

Last thing is that I personally thought this movie was true to being creepy simply because it had the whole point where it was happening in the world right now and it seems possible that it could happen now.

There is even a possibility that maybe this IS happening now just very very slowly. More and more people are becoming affected by mental illness and suicide rates are rising.

This movie wasn’t a great portrayal of mental illness on any counts but it does bring up that sort of creepy mentality.

Also, that being said, the movie definitely should have had a suicide warning. As a person who has struggled with suicidal tendencies in the past I was triggered after the first twenty minutes and had to stop watching it for a while.

And no, I don’t mean triggered as in offended, get over yourselves. I had a fucking panic attack and was hyperventilating like crazy.

I would’ve been fine normally but I ultimately had no idea it was coming and then boom mass suicides everywhere, graphic ones too.

Thelma (2017) -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6304046/

[LFF] [cinema]

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