MovieChat Forums > Bird Box (2018) Discussion > better than quiet place but barely

better than quiet place but barely

posted 5 years ago by maximmm (3043)
10 replies | jump to latest

I mean, there wasn't as much suspension of disbelief necessary in this film - in the quiet place, you needed to be an absolute moron to buy into the whole premise of a couple not making any sound for 2 years.

I also liked the fact that in this film we see a bit of team-building - until the bitter end. That allowed more interesting characters to be shown on the screen - and better character development.

Still, this film featured plenty of stupidity - but it was just a tad easier to buy, because people weren't dying after each sneeze/fart. In fact, in the quiet place, I don't buy that humanity would have lost the war to those blind creatures - given that it was clearly shown that they weren't invincible (in fact, they seemed to lack any sort of intelligence), thereby making the whole premise even dumber. In this film.... well, we still didn't get to see the boogie creatures, which in some ways brings this film down a notch. I mean, I prefer for a bit of science in films of this sort - yet none was present in this movie nor the quiet place - so I can't say that Bird Box was that much better. So, while the quiet place is several folds dumber, this film doesn't even bother showing the evil lurking on earth. All I saw was a bunch of leaf blowers hired on set to blow some leaves in the air for the taping of this film. I'm not particularly impressed.

Otherwise.... the acting here was OK - the script was dumb, but despite the stupidity, a bit less stupid than the quiet place. Would I recommend watching this film? No - being a bit better than the quiet place does not make a film great. But... if you liked the quiet place - you may come to love this crapper.

[–] xfool (923) 5 years ago

so no one knows if the attackers were aliens or man made?
are 'they' invisible or its more like psychological or viral?

[–] maximmm (3043) 5 years ago

Nope - we learned nothing in the end.
Supposedly they started spreading from Russia - but what they are, what they look like - where they come from - we know nothing.

There was no science in this film whatsoever - hell, apparently even seeing them on TV led to people losing their minds, so we were spared such fate LOL

Anyways, I see this is as just lazy writing. Or maybe they saw how people criticized the quiet place to death due to the sheer stupidity of the whole premise, as they've decided to keep their doom creatures off the screen for the duration of the whole film. I think that's a shame - because it's not difficult to design creatures which are truly invincible - even with a bit of scientific analysis, but hiring leaf blowers proved to be much cheaper than hiring a cgi team.

[–] xfool (923) 5 years ago

I see....out of curiouslty I found this from googling

https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/7z3pcu/in_bird_box_by_josh_malerman_what_do_you_think/

[–] maximmm (3043) 5 years ago

Ah, apparently the laziness stems from the book writer - not the script writers. Oh well.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

we know nothing.

[–] bohemianroxie (2471) 5 years ago

I actually preferred A Quiet Place...but enjoyed both.

For me it would stand to reason that something so basic would be the end of many before they actually caught on..so I don't find it so far fetched from a fantasy sci fi angle. Just like in the overwrought zombie scenario. So many die right off the bat because they rightfully don't believe or catch on to what's going on until it's too late.. That's realistic.

And in these 2 films they were able to speak and see and live a life of sorts in both scenarios when they weren't exposed or forging for supplies.
I don't find it any more stupid or lazy than 99% of what passes for entertainment these days and found it a fresh take on an over used theme.

Personally it doesn't matter if they told us what it was. Why do they have to tell us everything?
It's either some alien component or invasion ...or maybe even some biological warfare. But I don't mind having to use my imagination.
No one likes most endings that cross every t and dot every i anyway. Being told for certain always seems to disappoint even more.

[–] NoEasyBuckets (334) 5 years ago

I've seen enough of these survival movies in my life that I didn't need another where I have to fill in the blanks and use my imagination to decide what was actually killing off the planet. It was an entertaining movie and I don't regret watching it, but I didn't like that aspect of it at all. I actually feel like it's lazier than coming up with a good explanation because it seems like a cheap attempt at mystery and to force people to come up with different theories.

In A Quiet Place you get very little information about the creatures but enough to satisfy your curiosity.

[–] bohemianroxie (2471) 5 years ago

I agree...that's one reason I find A Quiet Place to be a better film..

[–] xfool (923) 5 years ago

Just watched it, agreed its better. Birdbox has better drama and more character development whereas quiet place excel in those tense scenes as the alien creature is stalking them in their house.

[–] catsidhe (1649) 5 years ago

Bored the absolute crap out of me. Especially so soon after A Quiet Place, which also bored me to tears.

All we need is one about smell now.