The time is 1976. Gerald Ford is in the White House, the Viking probes had just started to beam back data from Mars, and the United States is celebrating the bicentennial.

Norma and Arthur Lewis are a nice couple. They live in a big beautiful house, have a great kid, and seem to be in the prime of their lives. Except that they spend too much money, their careers are stalled, tuition for their son’s education is going up, and Norma needs an operation to help correct a problem with her foot. Things aren’t grim, but there is certainly room for improvement.

One morning, a mysterious stranger leaves an equally strange box on their front doorstep, a box with a single large button affixed to the top. He shows up later to explain that pushing the button will result in the death of an unknown human being, but that the nice couple with their money problems will also receive one million in cash. They spend most of a day worrying at the decision like a dog worries at burrs stuck in the coat, but eventually Norma decides to go for it. The button gets pushed.

If you have seen the trailer, then you know the set up. It is an interesting moral dilemma, murder without consequence and with great reward. Who wouldn’t be tempted?

It is also far too simple a premise to engage a movie audience for two hours. The director also wrote the screenplay, and he goes off on tangents that might just keep people guessing for awhile. For the Lewis couple start to notice others around them acting strangely, lying about their names and motivations, and moving in lockstep towards an unknown goal. And why do those who act oddly always look confused and have nosebleeds?

I, for one, was disappointed. Eventually things go so far off the rails that the plot resembles something knocked together by college students during a drunken bull session in the dorms. The only reason I stuck around until the credits started to roll, instead of leaving to rake leaves in my front yard, was because I was mildly interested to see what ultimately happens to the nice couple we saw at the beginning.

Although I’m not sorry I stuck around, because otherwise I’d wonder in a mild way about how it turned out, I am sorry I spent seven bucks for a ticket.

Why was I so disappointed? What drained all tension and suspense from a film that was supposed to be chock-full of it? To explain that, I’ll have to reveal the Big Reveal. Spoilers below the fold, which I strongly urge everyone who is planning on watching the movie from reading. Just stop here and accept my assurances that I didn’t like the film.

Still here? Then I suppose you don’t mind knowing about the only real plot twist in the entire movie. The one big surprise, which is suppose to keep you from feeling that you wasted your time and money going to the theater, is that aliens did it.

That’s right, aliens did it. (You never get to see them. The picture above was added just for effect.) Although no one comes right out and says so until the last half hour or so, it becomes pretty obvious that aliens are behind the whole murderous button scheme. And it is obvious that the button test is being supported by a massive government conspiracy, with black-ops troops helping the aliens conduct the tests. No resource is denied, and everyone who finds out about the alien involvement immediately starts to do what they can to help them.

If you can’t understand why highly connected people are so eager to hand the aliens what they want, then you haven’t seen the first X-Files movie. If too many people fail the test, if enough couples decide that a million in cash is worth more than someone’s life, then the aliens will simply wipe the planet clean of human life. Better help them conduct their little experiment or else they might decide that they don’t need to conduct any experiments at all.

Like I said, this wasn’t spelled out in concrete terms until the last half hour, but I saw it coming from a mile away. I kept hoping that I was wrong, that there was some other plot twist coming along that won’t make it seem like I had sat through an entirely predictable TV episode stretched out to a couple of hours. But that wasn’t to be.

Why did this disappoint me so? Keep in mind that the film is set in 1976. What is the year now? It has been more than three decades, so we must have passed the test. Either that, or the aliens were bluffing.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some leaves to rake.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 10:32 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.