Black Box Review: A Great Twist and Stellar Lead Performance Save This Disaster Thriller

PLOT: Vero Airlines Flight 298 from New Orleans to Seattle becomes the center of a chilling supernatural mystery.

REVIEW: I consider Final Destination 5 to be one of the best of the franchise, so I always look forward when direct Steven Quale has a new film coming out. While nothing else he’s done has quite lived up to that sequel, my ears still perk up when he’s got a new project. Now, he’s taking the familiar concept of plane disaster and giving it a cosmic twist with Black Box. But does it stand out from other horror films set on a plane?

The story of Black Box follows a passenger flight that is intercepted by a mysterious being. It’s a pretty basic disaster movie setup, with the plane being the primary setting and this being an ensemble. There is a bit of cosmic horror at play, but it almost feels like an afterthought. It seems like the filmmakers don’t want to commit too early to an explanation, so instead opt to drag out the mystery and increase the odd occurrences happening to the passengers. Maybe this could have worked with some more interesting characters

Tom Brittney is essentially our lead, and he’s so good that he feels like he’s in a different movie from everyone else. His character is really the only one given much reason to care about. His “save the cat” moment comes the moment we meet him, with him offering to pay for a fellow passenger’s camera that he accidentally knocked onto the floor. The shocking lack of stakes to get him to that moment made me chuckle. The film feels more focused, and the story only seems to move forward when he’s involved.

Kaja Chan plays a conspiracy theorist and is out of the movie the moment it seems like they’re doing something interesting with her. The only other person who really gets any development is Molly Belle Wright, who is in an oddly similar role to the one she played in Deep Water. No one else in the ensemble really stands out and seems to just be fodder for the second half of the film. Which, yes, there’s a twist, and I won’t be getting into it here, but the best part of the film is in the portion that I can’t really talk about. It gives the film a purpose and is executed in a very fun way.

Black Box utilizes footage from the passengers’ cameras, seemingly being watched by investigators, to give some background. I really liked this as a way to develop a rather large ensemble without overly expositional dialogue. It also serves as a way to give us some more variety with the shots, especially during the more intense moments. Though one thing that will always annoy me is when footage is intended to be shot on a phone, yet it looks like a film camera, and this is pretty bad about that.

I found myself very conflicted with the FX work. Some of the green screen, particularly in the cockpit, can be pretty wonky. There’s even a moment at the end that looked like Generative AI, which is very disappointing. Filmmakers really need to understand that it is always going to make their movie look worse, and the payoff is never worth it. Conversely, I loved the effect of the storm taking over the plane, and there’s even a moment in Zero G that looks great. So it was a very polarizing experience overall.

The moment I heard that Quale was directing a thriller set on a plane, it was easy to assume the film would have some Final Destination-y aesthetics. But I was surprised at how much he avoids this. We aren’t getting any rube goldberg style traps; instead, it’s just this cosmic horror and paranoia. I just wish Stephen Susco’s script were able to keep things interesting. The dialogue is often so cringey and unnatural, and it never does enough with its characters to make me care about their plight.

I went into Black Box completely fresh, not even seeing the trailer, so it was interesting to see this mystery unfold. But it just takes way too long to get going. For a film that’s less than 90 minutes, the pacing is what fails it the most. This needed to be exciting, yet nothing happens till the second half of the movie. Oddly enough, though, I really enjoyed the ending, and it brings things together in a satisfying way. I think part of it is that Brittney takes over the film, and the bigger picture starts to come more into focus. I just wish the journey getting there was more memorable.

Black Box is now available to stream on VOD.