‘Bird Box’ review — Netflix’s uneven but entertaining post-apocalyptic thriller

Bird Box doesn’t bring anything new to the post-apocalyptic thriller genre despite a strong third act and solid performances.

Bird Box certainly has the pedigree of a great movie behind it. The Netflix-produced movie is directed by the Emmy-winning director of The Night Manager Susanne Bier—she pulled off an upset against The People v. O.J. Simpson—written by the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Arrival Eric Heisserer, and based off Josh Malerman’s novel of the same name, which is one of the best novels of the decade. 

However, all the talent doesn’t necessarily translate onto the screen. Bird Box tells the story of the end of the world that is eerily similar to A Quiet Place, which premiered earlier this year. A phenomenon of people killing themselves after seeing some mysterious creatures is spreading across the globe. Unlike A Quiet Place, Bird Box—to its detriment—shows us the end of the world. 

Reluctant expecting mother Malorie (Sandra Bullock) is taken to a prenatal checkup at a hospital by her plucky and excited sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson). As the sister’s make their way to the hospital, news about an odd phenomenon happening in Europe and Asia dominate the TV and radio. Something is making people commit suicide in droves and it just arrived on Malorie and Jessica’s doorstep.

There’s a fantastic action sequence in the underrated World War Z where Brad Pitt and his family must escape Philadelphia while a wave of newly zombified corpses floods the streets. Bird Box goes for the same effect here to less successful results. Bier does a great job of adding tension to set pieces, however, some of the choices she makes take away from that tension.

As they’re trying to escape the chaos unfolding, Jessica sees whatever creature is causing the phenomenon and crashes the car. Malorie is able to escape to a nearby house with the help of Iraq war vet Tom (Moonlight‘s Trevante Rhodes) where she finds a group of people trying to process what just happened.

In the house, we find conspiracy theorist grocery store employee Charlie (Lil Rey Howery of Get Out fame), an older woman named Sheryl (Jacki Weaver), and the bothersome alcoholic Douglas (John Malkovich). Those character descriptions I gave are all we ever know about these and the other characters in the house including some that we know even less about—Greg (B.D. Wong), Felix (Colson Baker aka Machine Gun Kelly), Lucy (Rosa Salazar).

The group falls into a routine with Tom taking a leadership role and Douglas continuing to antagonize the group. Eventually, a soft-spoken pregnant young woman named Olympia (Danielle Macdonald—a standout) comes to the door in one of the more memorable sequences in the film. Her character is one of the few that is given some depth and often drives emotion into the story. 

The house is fortified by covering the windows with newspapers and no one goes outside without a blindfold. Desperate for food, the group leaves the safety of the house in a completely blacked out car to venture to a grocery store. As they make their way, the sounds of the crumbled society echo around them—the issue here is that Bier shows us what is happening outside the car leaving little intrigue.

For the first two-thirds of the film, the screenplay often falls into cliches of the apocalypse genre—, particularly in the often messy dialogue. What made the novel and A Quiet Place is the scarcity of details and genre. Bird Box, on the other hand, goes too far into the weeds to explain characters and the situation they’re in. Yet somehow, we come away knowing less than we did before.

However, parts of the movie do work. Sprinkled throughout the film are flashforwards to a time further into the crisis in scenes that feel like they’re pulled from A Quiet Place. Malorie along with two young children named simply Girl (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Boy (Julian Edwards) take a boat down a river to some mythic sanctuary where they hope to be safe from the creatures. 

Here, Bier and Heisserer take a simplistic approach. There’s little to see and little dialogue. These scenes are easily the best and most tense, so when the film completely reverts to these flashforwards for the third act it takes off. There’s something heightened and terrifying about not being able to see and Bird Box translates that feeling onto the screen as Malorie and kids encounter dangers down the river. If anything, the third act redeems the movie as a whole.

The premise of Bird Box is so promising and its source material is some of the best horror fiction ever written. However, it often feels like both Bier and Heisserer don’t trust the audience enough to deliver a stripped-down story. Maybe that’s because Netflix was looking for a mainstream blockbuster type, which they certainly got—this movie is going to be a crowdpleaser, most likely. 

The third act is where thematically the film comes together as Malorie struggles with motherhood in the face of a hopeless world. Bullock is solid as always in these scenes, but Rhodes is the steady hand here that elevates the material and delivers the thesis of the movie. It makes me wish this is what Bird Box was the entire time, but that would just be A Quiet Place wouldn’t it?

Bird Box will be available to stream on Netflix on December 25th. You can get the book here.