Richard Kelly is an out-there sort of filmmaker, something I liked about both "Donnie Darko" and "Southland Tales", even though neither one is something i'd call a good movie. They have nothing on "The Box" though, a movie that begins painfully dull and just gravitates towards being pretentious and a misery to sit through.

Cameron Diaz and James Marsden star as Norma and Arthur Lewis, a married couple who get a box delivered to their door, which is later explained by the mysterious Arlington Steward (Frank Langella), a man who carries horrible burns on his face after being hit by lightning. If the couple chooses to press the button on the box, they will get 1 million dollars but a stranger will die. They could use the money. Norma's a teacher and Arthur works for NASA. Both have suffered major setbacks at their jobs, Norma struggles on a daily basis after some of her toes had to be amputated, and they want to keep sending their young son to a private school. Just is this real or is it a joke? The box is just that, a box. Also, if it is real, could they live with the consequence?

It's all very similar to "The Monkey's Paw" and "The Twilight Zone" (actually one of the "Zone" episodes was based on the short story "Button, Button", which is the source material here.) I won't tell if the couple decides to press the button but I will say that the couple's initial disbelief and talk of consequences seem so half-hearted that we could really care less about their dilemma, but what comes after is a string of randomness so messy that it requires a hazmat suit just to watch it. There is a NASA cover-up, water-gateways, every background character is a zombie following the couple around, everyone gets nosebleeds and Steward seems to be running more choice and consequence type tests but we're given very little reason as to the purpose? The goal of suspense is to keep the viewer in the dark, I get that, but when a filmmaker is just pulling lots of different ideas out of his ass then all plausibility goes out the window. And the acting is leaden from almost everyone except Langella. This is one box Warner Brothers should have just sent back.

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