The Box

Today I watched the Box. I only read the plot line on IMDB and decided to watch it, because it sounded cool. (A small wooden box arrives on the doorstep of a married couple, who know that opening it will grant them a million dollars and kill someone they don't know.)
While watching it, I got more and more confused. There are a lot of loose ends in this movie, annoying the heck out of me.
It might have been a really good movie, if only at least half of the loose ends were tied. The story in general is really good, it makes you think about the human race, of how greedy and, well, stupid we really are. But I don't really see what Martians have got to do with that. Suggesting they are worried about what we are doing to eachother, why do THEY have the right to make us kill eachother a bit more? It just doesn't make sense.
Now, I've done some background searching and found the original story 'Button, Button', by Richard Matheson. I have to explain a little bit to you first, or else you won't know what I'm talking about. There's this box. With a button in it. If you push it, you get a million bucks (less, in the original story). Also, someone you don't know dies. In the movie, people who don't know eachother, are people the button-pusher has never met before. Pushing the button concludes in someone dying and the start of a series of tests, resulting in the death of the button-pusher, at the moment another button-pusher pushes the button (how many wood would a woodchuck chuck...), creating a cycle of deaths, caused by people themselves. In the original story though, the husband dies, cleverly ending the story by having the button-giver asking the wife 'did you really think you knew your husband?'.
I really don't see the point in completely altering an amazing 10-page story, to make a two hour movie. They used this story before in The Twilight zone, also altered. This resulted in a 30 minute episode, which was obviously enough. So now, we begin the movie with an hour of the extended version of the Twilight Zone episode, followed by another hour of vague scenes, sci-fi stuff, confusing conversations and an open ending, not at all making you 'think', it just annoys you. Especially the fact that the husband, who just killed his wife to save his sons hearing and vision, now has to leave his son behind. It just doesn't make sense!
This movie could have been so much better, sticking to the original story, leaving all the sci-fi stuff out. The concept is actually really good, quite clever too. They just didn't make it work. Just like Cameron's southern accent.

Love,
Renate