The Box, is the newest movie from director Richard Kelly, known best for his masterpiece head-scratcher Donnie Darko (2001) and the disastrous head-exploder that was Southland Tales (2006). He has stated that he wants to make The Box a "commercial film," and it shows. The movie has big name stars like Cameron Diaz and Frank Langella, and the first part of the movie plays like a tight, intriguing thriller. But then something happens: It starts getting weirder. By the end of the movie, the plot becomes so strange that we are reminded that even though Kelly is trying to make a commercial film, he's not a commercial director.The movie concerns Arthur and Norma Lewis, played by James Marsden and Cameron Diaz, respectively, a young couple in 1976 Virginia that has a young son named Walter. One night, they find a box on their doorstep that contains a button and cryptic instructions to wait for a man named Arlington Steward. Over the course of the day, both Arthur and Norma encounter setbacks at work that leave the family strapped for cash. Into this situation comes Steward (Frank Langella), a man with burn wounds covering half his face and an explanation of what the box does. If Norma and Arthur push the button, someone they don't know will die, and they will receive $1 million dollars. If they don't, then he will take the box back and they will get nothing.

To this point, the movie follows the basic plot of "Button, Button," an episode of The Twilight Zone that was itself based off of Richard Masterson's short story of the same name. But a half-hour Twilight Zone episode couldn't be spread out over the almost two-hour running time of The Box, so the Lewises start to look into just who Arlington Steward is and for whom he is working. The more information is uncovered, the more outlandish and confusing the story gets. It's shown that the box involves Mars, lightning, mind control and even the afterlife. These twists would have been much easier to swallow had they been sufficiently explained, but Kelly often skims over many of the ideas presented, leaving the viewer with a rudimentary but insufficient explanation for all that is going on and therefore the sense that something was either left out or forgotten in the plot.

After seeing the movie and taking in the plot and themes, something hit me: I had seen this before. Not literally, of course, but I realized that Kelly's earlier Donnie Darko had some astounding similarities to The Box. They share the Virginia setting, the private schools, the strange figure (Frank in Donnie Darko, Steward in this), the global implications, the themes of self-sacrifice and even the "magical water" effect, which looked similar in both movies despite the fact that Darko was produced in 2001. I realize that there are certain explanations for these similarities. Kelly grew up in Virginia in the '70s and '80s and his father had worked at NASA, but still, the amount of similarities is kind of disappointing. The very fact that Kelly was trying to make something different from his usual work magnifies the sense that this really isn't very different.

Still, the movie has its merits because the acting is mostly good. Diaz made her character believable and easy to relate to. Norma is just as confused as the audience was most of the time and seeks a balance between fear and perseverance in the face of a seemingly limitless organization that's out to get her and her family. Langella is perfect as Steward. Having played both Dracula and Richard Nixon in the past, he is an obvious choice for such a menacing, shadowy character, giving glimpses of humanity and even sympathy in his role. I did have some trouble with Marsden, though. Something about him just seemed a bit out of place. He just feels too young to make a believable husband to Diaz. He still plays his role well, but he seemed out of place, not really fitting in with the setting of the '70s. This becomes even more obvious when Norma jokingly refers to his "mid-life crisis."

I'm not saying that The Box was a bad movie. It wasn't. It actually kept me engaged throughout-I never felt like it was dragging on. I just feel like it had much more potential than this. Kelly is an immensely creative man; anyone who's seen Donnie Darko can attest. So the fact that he ends up retreading a lot of the themes and motifs he explored in that movie makes me more than a little disappointed. It doesn't seem like he knows what to do in this film, and the result could have been so much more. Since the movie's actually going to be screened on campus, you'll have a chance to see it for yourself. Maybe if you've never seen Donnie Darko, you'll like it more-who knows?

The Box will screen in Wasserman Cinematheque at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19. The event, sponsored by the Film, Television and Interactive Media department, will also feature a conversation between cinematographer Steven Poster, ASC, and Boston Globe columnist Mark Shanahan. Tickets will be distributed today at 2:45 p.m. in Olin-Sang 219.