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The Box | 2009 | PG-13 | - 2.6.3

A mysterious stranger (Frank Langella) offers a woman (Cameron Diaz) and her husband (James Marsden) a box with a button and tells them that if they push the button they will receive a million dollars, but someone they do not know will have to die. Also with James Rebhorn, Holmes Osborne, Gillian Jacobs, Celia Weston and Deborah Rush. Directed by Richard Kelly. [1:56]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A man and a woman hug and kiss passionately.
 A man and a woman lie together in bed, fully clothed and the man touches the woman's shoulder. A man and a woman lie together in bed in a couple of scenes; the woman wears a form-fitting, floor-length nightgown.
 A man watches as a woman wearing a short slip (her upper thigh is visible) puts on makeup, and later when she is dressed, the man and the woman hug and he rubs her back. A man and a woman embrace and dance slowly. Men and women slow dance.
 A young man in a classroom setting says that a character in a book was "a slut who married for money and killed her baby." A man jokes at a dinner party that he and his wife had taken "private" photographs and they would be interested in a "swap." A man jokingly asks a woman if an unknown man is her "secret lover."

VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - A man lifts a gun to a woman's chest and pulls the trigger: the woman's body collapses against his and he gently places her body on the ground.
 A man jumps from behind a wall, holds a gun to a man's head and pushes him into a parked vehicle; two men tackle a boy and carry him off, a woman shrieks but is silenced by a man placing his hands over her mouth, and she is picked up by three men and carried away.
 Blood pours out of a woman's nose, her body becomes limp and we see her being placed in an ambulance, unconscious, with blood coming from her nose. A man pushes a young man and shakes his shoulders, and blood starts to pour out of one of the young man's nostrils -- the man gets blood on his fist and releases the young man. A young woman tells a man that the only way that he can survive is if he looks into the light: she appears to zone out and rambles as a small stream of blood is seen coming from one of her nostrils, her head slumps over and the man tries to rouse her but to no avail; she then sits up and leaves. A young man escorts a woman out of a room, blood begins to stream out of one of his nostrils, the woman gasps and tells the young man that his nose is bleeding, and he wipes the blood and looks at his bloodied fingertip. A man's nose begins to bleed (we see a small stream of blood coming from one nostril) and he wipes it with his hand. We see blood on a man's knuckles, a young woman comments to the man that he has blood on his hands, and he says that he had gotten in a fight.
 An older woman tells a man that he must decide between three "gateways" -- saying that one will lead to redemption and salvation and that the remaining two will lead to damnation; the woman raises her hands over three boxes on the floor, she shakes as a gel-like blue fluid comes out of the boxes, and as the gel rises blood begins to pour out of the woman's nose.
 We see police, weapons drawn, enter a house: they find a dead woman lying on the ground, and there's a small pool of blood at her back and a bloody bullet wound in her chest.
 A car slows down to avoiding hitting a man dressed up as Santa Claus who's in the middle of the street, and a tow truck, going full-speed, crashes into them and we later see a body bag.
 We see a man with a portion of his jaw missing in several scenes -- sinewy scar tissue is visible, as well as a portion of his lower teeth: A woman opens her front door and sees the man; the same man tells a woman that if she pushes a button someone in the world will die, but that she will receive one million dollars. A woman removes her boot to reveal her foot, which is mangled and missing all but her small toe, and it is covered in shiny scar tissue; a young man laughs as other people gasp.
 We see a woman lying on a bed, a large sheet of water hovering above her, with a man floating in the sheet of water: the woman opens her eyes, reaches out and touches the water, which causes the man to fall to the bed and water pours over the two of them and onto the floor and pours out the doorway and down the stairs.
 A woman shouts over the phone at a man. A woman cries and screams over a telephone; the woman says that she saw someone take her child from a grocery store, load the child into a van and drive away. A woman looks out the window and sees a man blankly staring back at her, and the woman screams.
 A man hands another man a photo of a deceased woman, telling him that the woman had been shot point-blank in the chest (we see a small pool of blood on the woman's chest). A handcuffed man is escorted by a police officer into a police station, an officer describes the murder of a woman, saying that she had been shot point-blank in the chest and they suspect her husband, and the officer shows the man crime-scene photos: we see the deceased woman, blood pooled on the ground, and an up-close picture of the bullet wound in the woman's chest. We see a crime scene with a chalk outline and dried blood on the floor.
 A boy struggles after waking up, soaking wet, lying in a bathtub, and we learn that the boy is both deaf and blind; he falls out of the bathtub, crawls on the floor, begins to shout and pound against a locked door, a man and woman rush to the door, and the man attempts to knock down the door but is unable to do so. A man is disoriented and with small scratches on his chin, he gets on his knees and is carried off by police officers.
 After a man hands a man and a woman a briefcase filled with money and leaves, he is followed by the another man, who shouts at him; the first man climbs into a car, the other man pounds on the windows and attempts to open the door but the car drives off. A man holds a gun to the back of another man.
 A man sits before a man and a woman, puts a gun on the table and instructs them that they must make one final decision -- that the man could shoot the woman in the heart, therefore restoring the hearing and sight of their young son, or the woman could sacrifice herself. A man and a woman argue about being responsible for the death of another human being. A woman and a man argue as to whether they could be part of a scheme created by a mentally ill man trying to use them as a cover for murder. A woman cries and asks a man if she will be forgiven. A man and a woman discuss how they might be the next to die, based on the unwitting actions of others. A man reads a newspaper clipping that says that a person had been struck by lightning. A woman leads a classroom of young men and women in a discussion about their idea of "hell." A boy tells a woman that she looked like a zombie when she had come home earlier. A woman tells a man that a young man had made fun of a woman's deformity earlier in the day, and the man is visibly angered. We hear a 911 call and a woman shouts that she had heard screaming and a gunshot.
 We see a report a man had been admitted to a burn unit, resuscitation has been to no avail, but the body still appears animated. A man tells another man his daughter had been "taken" and he had to shoot his wife in order to save his child. A man talks about the actions of a select few that will determine the fate of an entire race, saying that if people choose their own gain over the lives of others, that the race will be exterminated. A man says that humans will whither and die and that the dead bodies of the people will be placed in a box and then ultimately disintegrated. A man tells a group of men that a woman had been disfigured after a barbell had been dropped on her foot, and during an X-Ray at the hospital, she was over exposed to X-Ray radiation, causing four of her toes to be destroyed and requiring skin grafts from her inner thigh to repair the burns. A woman describes an older gentleman that she had seen, whose disfigured face had frightened her, and she says that the man was missing "half his face" and had obviously been a burn victim. A woman ask a man whose face is disfigured if he had been struck by lightning; he says that he had, and then asks the woman what she had thought when she had first seen him, she replies that it helped her deal with her own deformities, the man asks for the woman's hand, and her head goes limp and she passes out. A man talks about another man who had be struck by lightning, that he had been rushed to the burn unit but had not survived, and that his body had been placed in the morgue and was held there until a nurse discovered that the man was not dead; instead, he was alive and had unexplained supernatural healing abilities, and all cellular degeneration had halted.
 A young woman holds up a book cover with a picture of a skull on it. A man carries the limp body of a young man in front of a group of people staring at a pool filled with a bubbling gel-like substance. Police officers hear a loud racket, kick a door in and find a small girl hunched beside the toilet.

LANGUAGE 3 - 1 scatological term, 7 mild obscenities, 4 religious exclamations, name-calling (fat guy, big mouth, crazy, mentally ill, con-artist, strange, old, geezer).

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman smokes a cigarette outside while holding an alcoholic drink, a man quickly downs an alcoholic drink, someone sips from a wine glass, a man takes a wine glass from a serving tray, a man takes a sip of champagne, two men sit at a bar with alcoholic drinks in front of them, a man jokes with a woman that their rehearsal dinner had been a "keg party" in the backyard, a man asks another man where he had gotten his alcoholic drink and comments that he is going to get one too, alcoholic drinks are shown on a table, and a woman jokes that a man knows how to "spike" the punch bowl. A woman smokes a cigarette, and a man smokes a cigarette and stubs it out into a very full ashtray.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Morality, death, humanity, marriage, dishonesty, murder, putting a price on life, life on other planets, space exploration, disfiguring accidents, lightning striking, deafness, blindness, punishment, salvation, damnation, hell, afterlife, radiation poisoning.

MESSAGE - One must fully evaluate the value of life before placing a price on it.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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