Pandora's Box

Yawn.

This is yet another painfully boring movie that tries to get by on soft-core pornography and (oh so shocking!) S&M themes to keep the viewer interested. Imagine the worst episode of "Red Shoe Diaries," I mean the absolute worst, with black actors. This movie is worse. Another viewer cleverly equated this to "Eyes Wide Shut." The is much similarity, although the dismal, slow-moving EWS is FAR more interesting than this turkey.

The dialog was probably written in less time than the movie spans. Seriously.

Actual porn movies have better scripts and less wooden acting.

I gave it a "2," only because the opening sequence was pretty well done.

Avoid this one like the plague.

The movie starts off - upping the ante. Where there was no real nudity in the first Trois movie, the sequel kicks off things with a scene that does not cover up anything - no pun intended. And including Michael Jai White in the movie - that Dude has some serious charisma. If you are into men, you probably will also like other qualities in/on him - mainly physical ones I assume.

That being said, the main female character is also someone you won't mind looking at. So getting these two together sounds like a perfect match. Of course this being a "Trois" movie, there is more to it than that. You have another man in this case - a man who seems not to love his wife ... there are a few things going on. Most are predictable. The twist is too I reckon - maybe not from the start, but there is a reason for that.

i liked this movie. it had so many twists and turns, and you had to pay close attention to understand it all. i feel lots of movies should have that. even though some things bothered me(Monica up tightness) i understand now that it was all in the acting(she was supposed to be perceived as an uptight person). i think it is better than the first movie, for the simple fact that the first one seemed like it was poorly doe. this one had many different locations(although they seemed to be playing the same soundtrack over and over again. but i liked the acting, and i liked the plot, although it had nothing to do with a threesome like the title would imply.

i liked it a lot....!

The independently produced PANDORA'S BOX finally made its way to a big screen in Columbia, SC in December 2002. Knowing that it was a follow-up to TROIS for director Rob Hardy, I didn't expect much, but I did expect to see an improvement in overall quality from what I saw in TROIS. PB failed to meet that expectation. In fact, I thought the quality of the film was worse than TROIS and anybody who thinks PANDORA'S BOX is good has very low standards for films.

Produced in Atlanta, PANDORA'S BOX appears to have been shot on a shoestring budget. The plot is pretty good but the script is so bad-- there are several grammatical challenges and lame dialogue at times-- the film never has a chance. Add some very flat acting and mediocre cinematography and you have the makings of something that is, well, not enjoyable.

Michael Jai White (Spawn, Half Past Dead), Monica Calhoun (The Best Man, The Player's Club) and Kristoff St. John (The Young and The Restless) star. All are decent actors in other films and on television but even their talents can't save this bad script. I was quite disappointed. Model Tyson Beckford also appears briefly in the film. No acting skills here. Just a body that most women would kill to see naked. And, they can in this movie.

Unfortunately, I saw a lot of flesh in the film that would have been better kept clothed. Calhoun is not the near perfectly shaped young woman she was in THE BEST MAN. At times, she looks as if she was in the early stages of pregnancy when the film was shot and we're still shown her bare belly. Crystale Wilson, who also appeared in THE PLAYER'S CLUB with Calhoun, is absolutely horrible in this film. She too should have kept her clothes on in the film or made the director hire better makeup and lighting artists. Her stretch marks were quite unappealing as was her mustache.

PANDORA'S BOX does have moments. Small flashes of brilliance. For instance, the opening scene is gripping. It's one of the few well shot sequences in the film. Sensual and suspenseful. For the most part, though, this film is woefully bad. So bad, one of the people in our group walked out midway through. He couldn't take it anymore and went to the lobby to play video games.

If this is the best Rob Hardy can do, he should pursue another career. I have a feeling he won't be able to sucker folks back to theaters to see another effort.

Someone else mentioned that this movie was very reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. This was just the black version. The plot of this movie was overpowered and entangled around an obviously pregnant star. It just irked me that she was pregnant and it didn't seem to fit into the movie's plot. It's like they ignored the fact that she was pregnant and jsut "shot around" the scenes that showed her being naked were shot from the wrong angle, they just reinforced the fact that she was pregnant. I kind of feel like if white actors were used this would have been a much better movie. If a white actress was pregnant and showing as much as the lead actress they would have replaced her. This definitely took away from the movie.

Oh well I'm through with this. I can't get away from the pregnancy thing.