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RATING:  
SINGAPORE - If you've seen the trailers for "The Box", you're probably wondering how the filmmakers planned to stretch a fairly simple premise (to push or not to push?) into a feature film.
The answer, as it turns out, was to fill it out with as much over-the-top ridiculousness and ludicrous plot twists as possible, all surrounding heavy philosophical exposition and religious allegory.
The basic premise is loaded with heaps of potential: A mysterious man (Frank Langella) visits a struggling couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) and offers a proposition: If they push the button in the titular box, one random person in the world will die and they will be awarded US$1 million. Needless to say, they push the button and shenanigans ensue.
While director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales) has dabbled in morality criticisms through dark science fiction, this effort - based on a short story by Richard Matheson of "I Am Legend" fame - uses the moral dilemma merely as a starting point for an incredibly convoluted journey through existentialism, government conspiracies, creepy horror-style images and Kelly's own twisted mind.
And it doesn't help that Diaz adopts an awful, distracting accent. It all adds up to being one of the most unbearably confusing and awkward movies in our recent viewing history. This is one box that should remain firmly shut.
- TODAY/ar
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