You thought it was better than A Quiet Place? May I ask what you thought was better? I can't think of one way that Bird Box was superior other than maybe some of the actors, though Emily Blunt was very good in AQP.
I thought A Quiet Place was actually a
bad movie, on quite a few fronts. If I had to rate it, I would probably come back with something along the lines of a 4.5/10. It lacked even the one saving grace that most films have in the horror/thriller genre, which is raw enjoyability. The movie was a slog, and a bore to get through, and that's coming from someone who loves slow-paced films.
Just to mention a few key differences
(fuck-ton of spoilers ahead):
1)
AQP lacked a script; they didn't speak for much of the film, and when they did, it was in very brief hushed tones, or very terse disjointed statements. In Bird Box, dialogue was, like most other decently watchable films, a somewhat positive aspect to the movie. The lack of dialogue in AQP isn't a positive attribute, at least, not with it's poor execution.
2)
Bird Box was 34 minutes longer than AQP, yet felt half as long. This is largely because the director kept the audience in a state of suspense for the duration of the film (roughly 2 hours); whereas, the 90 minutes that elapsed in AQP was filled with dull family drama. The action sequences felt like brief interludes to more squabbling or idiocy on the part of one of the leads.
3)
The antagonists in Bird Box, as metaphysical as they might be, made a hell of a lot more sense than AQP. If your enemy is a demon, or some ethereal entity that you cannot physically counter; then there is some sense in the overriding terror that comes from an unstoppable foe. It's basically a fucking ghost or some supernatural terror.
But if the antagonist is basically an armored mole from underground, that can be defeated in the end with a double-barrel shotgun, but not a nuclear bomb, not a tank shell, not an armor-piercing uranium-tipped 20mm bullet .. but a double-barrel shotgun... I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. That, signifies to me, that the director just gave up at the end of the film. The dad died, time to end the movie with the obvious MacGuffin / Deus ex machina.
4)
AQP's protagonists were idiotic in their actions making it difficult to empathize. Why bring the children with them on their trip? If all it takes is a mattress to soundproof a basement, why not do that and just stockpile food -- why leave with small kids? Why give birth to a child, why plan out the unthinkable when you already have 2 small kids?
These people risked everything for a meaningless gesture, including the lives of their children - ultimately costing the life of the father. Sure they "saved the world" by discovering the beings weakness, but, this was really a contrivance. Assume for a moment the monster didn't come into the basement after killing the father and they never discover the secret. All of this would have been for nothing. The only saving grace for all of their actions is the contrived scenario that unfolds at the last 10 seconds of the movie.
5) AQP's secondary antagonist happens to be one of the protagonists.
Again, a problem of empathizing with the cast; the daughter in this film gets her father killed. Her actions, repeatedly, are unwarranted in the situation they're in -- they make no sense. Growing up, I would *never* think to speak to my mother in such a disrespectful way, to storm off, or to disobey as this child does - and yet, they are in a post-apocalyptic scenario where this kid does whatever the fuck she wants.
By contrast, stark contrast, Bird Box actually has a 1-to-1 dynamic here where Sandra Bullock literally tells her children "if you disobey me, I will hurt you." And they
believe her. Why do they believe her? That much is painfully obvious... because the threat is not an empty one, and they know it.
If Sandra Bullock were in the AQP world, Tom would still be alive and they'd have conquered the monsters... That's how bad the family is in AQP.
6)
AQP's ending was awful. I think I've touched on this enough. The ending in Bird Box was it's weakest point, but it was more satisfying in the end than AQP.
7)
AQP didn't really touch on anything of substance. It was, at it's core, a horror movie about creepy things in the dark. Bird Box was actually about something a bit more interesting; and it tries to tangle with topics both clumsily but also in a way that apparently is jarring to a lot of people (considering the numerous trigger warnings the film has prompted). I think sprinting from topics like the disconnection of humans due to social media, to the Rapture and "demons," to being uncontrollably compelled to commit suicide by simply "seeing" what's out there is all pretty interesting conceptually, even if executed half-assedly. I will say this was a better go at it than The Happening.
8) As was stated before but not enumerated fully,
AQP was boring. There isn't much more to be said here; it simply was a boring film. Bird Box was at a minimum enjoyable to watch.
9)
The plot progression of AQP seemed far too simplistic. Nothing actually happens in the movie. The opening scene is set years prior with the death of the child setting the stage for the family drama between the husband/wife/daughter; but the events of the movie are truly inconsequential to the ending of the film. Ultimately the daughter forgives herself, the husband .. dies, and the mother (??); but at the end of the day, they save the world, so all is well. Simply put, nothing that happens in the movie is actually meaningful.
Whereas, in Bird Box, even though the plot is also fairly simplistic, much more of what is happening is actually relevant to the outcome of the film. As I stated in my previous post criticizing the plot - those events actually move the film forward, whereas, much of what happened in AQP was meaningless.
10)
The setting of AQP wasn't very interesting. Everything within the context of the movie happens at the farm, and nothing really of any substance extends beyond that point. In Bird Box, the film takes place in multiple locations, and somewhat realistically extends from the first house, to multiple houses (on the run), to the river, to the forest. We don't really get that same progression in AQP even though the movie had a larger budget.
11)
The characters in AQP simply were one-dimensional, stoic, and lack development. The caring dad who is hurt by the death of his son; the caring mom, who is hurt by the death of her son; the caring sister, who is rebellious in her teens, and is hurt by the death of her brother. They all blame themselves and each other for the loss and have to fix their relationship to truly survive. That's the entire movie.
While one could argue Bird Box is similar, in that Bullock's character has to find her motherly and feminine self at some point in the movie in order to save her child; the complexity of the situation makes the entire scenario more forgiving. For one, it's not actually her child; in fact, it's strongly implied that she plotted to
kill this child, to save her own. In fact, she didn't even want any of these kids, and her son is the product of a bullshit relationship where the guy didn't even care about her. She finds love in a man for a few years, but he ends up dying to save these kids that she doesn't want and didn't name.
Simply put, Bird Box's protagonist is a far more complex and even understandable than the caricatures of wholesome parents that we get in AQP. Even the child who nearly gets them killed is understandable because she is terrified of Sandra Bullock to the point that becomes aware that Bullock intends on her death. That's actually pretty interesting considering the kid is only 5.
Now, Bird Box's secondary characters ARE one-dimensional, and they completely lack development; this is true, but that's true for every character in AQP without exception.
Can someone explain why the actual box of birds was important at all? Yeah, they could sense the demons, but if you can't even open your eyes when they're calm, there's not much of a point there.
The birds are the canary in a coal mine. They carried the birds to alert them not of the presence of the demons, but of the crazy people who were going around killing people by opening their eyes (another dynamic that AQP lacked).