The Box
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: November 6, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
10
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireMark Dinning
Movie Marmite. Many will be perplexed. Donnie Darko fans should lap it up. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The Box is a mess, but it's a curiously haunting, intriguing, brain-tickling mess, and it delivers that "Donnie Darko" feeling in truckloads. Or should that be rocketloads? Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This movie kept me involved and intrigued, and for that I'm grateful. I'm beginning to wonder whether, in some situations, absurdity might not be a strength. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The Box is the work of a visionary flirting with commercialism after having so grandly flouted it with “Southland Tales.’’ He doesn’t give in completely. Several trips to the megaplex might be required for The Box to make complete sense. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Whenever The Box threatens to crash, Kelly summons up another haunting image or heartfelt, albeit thin, moral inquiry. It’s an unwieldy, ambitious, one-of-a-kind film waiting for a cult to find it. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The Box turns into a kind of sacrilegious Christian fable; it’s haunted by God, but it delivers a vicious doctrine. At the risk of impoliteness, I would suggest that Kelly drop his reliance on religio-mystico-eschatological humbug and embrace, in realistic terms, the fantastic possibilities in ordinary acts of murder, fear, heroism, and death. If he pulls himself together, he could be the next Hitchcock. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
For his third feature, Richard Kelly delivers neither a triumph (like his first, Donnie Darko) nor a travesty (like his second, Southland Tales) but a sure-handed genre piece that manages to wrap up before its plot mushrooms completely out of control. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Despite its flaws, The Box remains intriguing; however, as its mysteries are solved, the prevailing sense is one of frustration rather than satisfaction. That makes The Box worthy of the dubious label of "an interesting failure." Read full review
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