Movie Reviews

Vacancy (2007)

Release Date: 20 April 2007 (USA)

Genres: Thriller

Actors: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry, Scott G. Anderson,  Mark Casella, David Doty, Norm Compton, Caryn Mower, Meegan Godfrey, Kym Stys, Andrew Fiscella, Dale Waddington Horowitz, Ernest Misko, Bryan Ross

Directors: Nimrod Antal

Country: USA

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Vacancy is a schlock surprise: a no-frills motel-hell slasher film - with a bit of soul. It’s proof that when characters are under attack by anonymous masked goons, it really is better if the victims aren’t just walking slabs of starlet meat. Luke Wilson, with his hangdog defensive mopiness, and Kate Beckinsale, all sexy severity, are ideally matched as a couple who hate each other. They’re David and Amy Fox, soon to be divorced, who find themselves stranded on an anonymous highway in the middle of the night, picking away at each other’s emotional scabs. Their tit-for-tat squabbling is itchy and funny, especially compared with the usual teen-horror-film jabber.

When these two wander into the Pinewood Motel, a roadside relic that looks as if it hasn’t been housecleaned since the late 1970s, it’s obvious that Vacancy is going to be an homage to the granddaddy of all psycho thrillers. It also looks like a comic nightmare set in the Twilight Zone. The motel’s manager (Frank Whaley) is a geek in a sardine mustache and aviator frames who emerges from an office, where he’s watching what sounds like torture porn. He’s a gloss on Norman Bates, but Whaley, all passive-aggressive frowns, plays this odd-duck creep with what might be called understated overstatement. The whole movie is like that: It’s grind-house trash done with style. (It’s also a tidy 80 minutes.)

When David and Amy get inside their motel room, it’s a squalid dump, but the rotting decor, which looks like early Brady Bunch house meets Saw, is so colorfully grubby there’s suspense lurking in every diseased nook and cranny. Before long, the two are being terrorized by ferocious knocks on the door, and when David discovers a pile of dusty videotapes, the torture and murder porn on them looks all too real. The creepy part is, the tapes were shot in that same motel room. Vacancy’s director, Nimrod Antal, made the technically impressive but turgid 2004 Hungarian subway drama Kontroll, but this time he gives every scene a spin of finesse. David and Amy have to crawl through a rat-infested tunnel and use a car as a weapon, but though the action is sometimes over-the-top, the staging never is. That’s why Vacancy is truly scary. It’s also undeniably a formula flick: Once you figure out where the movie is going, it never once veers off its sadistic, don’t-peek-behind-the-shower-curtain course. But this is one fear ride that almost gets you to care.

By Owen Gleiberman for EW.com

Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)

Release Date: 8 June 2007 (USA)

DVD Release Date: 5 October 2007

Genres: Comedy | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Actors: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Elliott Gould, Shaobo Qin, Don Cheadle, Eddie Jemison, Andy Garcia, Scott L. Schwartz, Carl Reiner

Directors: Steven Soderbergh

Country: USA

Plot: Danny Ocean’s team of criminals are back and are composing a plan more personal than ever. When ruthless casino owner Willy Bank double-crosses Reuben Tishkoff, causing a heart attack, Danny Ocean vows that him and his team will do anything to bring Willy Bank and everything he’s got down. Even if it includes hiring help from one of their own enemies, Terry Benedict.

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Hollywood.com Says:
"Third time’s a charm. Ocean’s Thirteen outshines the second installment, offering that certain breezy fun the original provided. Those cutie pies just work better in Vegas."

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This is more like it. Leaving the smug self-congratulation of Twelve far behind, Ocean’s Thirteen is a stylish, breezy confection that, from first to (almost) last, is all about the con instead of the Hollywood royalty doing the conning, its eventual lapses into self-awareness forgivable for being more playful than egotistical.

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The specifics of the plotting are both too dense and quite frankly, ludicrous, to go into in detail, but it goes something like this: big time Vegas hotel owner Willy Bank (Pacino) reneges on a deal with Reuben (Gould, who all but steals the film with an absolutely delightful Godfather joke) to partner him in a new casino, leaving Reuben broke and nearly dead. Ocean (Clooney) and the boys (Pitt, Damon, et al) vow revenge on Bank by coming up with several hi-tech schemes to win so big on opening night that Bank will be ruined. An added complication arises when the one person able to finance their plan, old foe Terry Benedict (Garcia), will only do it if the boys steal some diamonds from Bank’s impregnable penthouse while they’re at it. And why is Vincent Cassel’s Toulour, the bad guy from Twelve, hanging around the hotel?

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Actually, it’s quite a straightforward setup really, but the joy of the film lies in the way the intricacies of the scams are revealed, in the smooth byplay between the supremely talented players, and in Soderbergh’s now finely polished direction. Though the zip and flair is back, the style quotient hasn’t been sacrificed to accommodate it, with some glorious camera work and beautiful aesthetics on top of the fun all coming together to make Ocean’s Thirteen probably the strongest of the trilogy.

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Almost everyone returns from the first two outings, the only dropouts being Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta Jones, neither of them particularly missed. As ever, such a large crew means casualties (Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner and Shaobo Qin barely merit showing up), especially with the inclusion of three new characters (Pacino, plus Barkin as his assistant and David Paymer as an unfortunate hotel inspector). Damon gets some decent screen time and laughs, while Casey Affleck and Scott Caan probably score the biggest yucks as the dopey, scrapping Malloy brothers. Truth be told, even Clooney and Pitt have very little to do other than stand around in sharp jackets or wear silly disguises, but that they do it with such exquisite, effortless cool is just the reason why we joined the game in the first place.

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By Paul Greenwood for Future Movies

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Release Date: 25 May 2007 (USA)

Genres: Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Actors: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, J.K. Simmons, Rosemary Harris, James Cromwell, Theresa Russell, Dylan Baker, Bill Nunn, Bruce Campbell, Cliff Robertson, Elizabeth Banks

Directors: Sam Raimi

Country: USA

Plot Summary: Spider-Man returns in Sam Raimi’s blockbuster finale to the Spider-Man trilogy. Having finally achieved balance between his regular life with Mary Jane and his superhero alter-ego, Peter Parker/Spider-Man thinks he finally has it made. But dark changes are on the horizon. His former friend Harry has become the New Goblin to hunt Peter down. The case regarding his Uncle Ben has been reopened and new evidence points to Flint Marko, who has recently become the Sandman, as the true killer.

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Peter Parker has finally found the balance he’s longed for between his love for Mary Jane Watson and his responsibilities as Spider-Man.

The city of New York and it’s citizens are at last coming around and appreciating everything he has done as his crime-fighting alter ego, and Peter is in the running for a staff job at the Daily Bugle.

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However, everything Peter has worked for is about to unravel. Flint Marko, while fleeing prison, is caught in an accident that displaces molecules and is transformed into the Sandman, a new super villain who is able to change his body into any shape of sand he sees fit.

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When Peter learns of a connection between The Sandman and the murder of his Uncle Ben, he will stop at nothing as Spider-Man to capture him. But before Peter can do so he discovers a mysterious black substance has turned his suit black, and has brought forth a darker side of Parker and Spidey nobody has seen before.

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Peter begins to give into this new dark personality, starts to abandon the ones he loves the most and in turn his best friend Harry Osborn takes up his late father’s mantle as The New Goblin. Quickly Parker begins a new romance with his lab partner, the beautiful Gwen Stacy but in doing so Peter sets off a rival Bugle photographer, a troubled young man by the name of Eddie Brock who is obsessed with Stacy. Little does Peter know the black substance has its sights set on Eddie else as well. Turning Brock into Venom, a foe that mirrors everything Spider-Man can do. Forcing Peter to become the strong-willed hero he has forgotten about if he hopes to defeat his greatest threat yet.

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Peter Parker has finally managed to piece together the once-broken parts of his life, maintaining a balance between his relationship with Mary-Jane and his responsibility as Spider-Man. But more challenges arise for our young hero.

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Peter’s old friend Harry Osborn has set out for revenge against Peter; taking up the mantle of his late father’s persona as The New Goblin, and Peter must also capture Uncle Ben’s real killer, Flint Marko, who has been transformed into his toughest foe yet, the Sandman. All hope seems lost when suddenly Peter’s suit turns jet-black and greatly amplifies his powers. But it also begins to greatly amplify the much darker qualities of Peter’s personality that he begins to lose himself to. Peter has to reach deep inside himself to free the compassionate hero he used to be if he is to ever conquer the darkness within and face not only his greatest enemies, but also…himself.

1408 (2007)

Genres: Horror | Thriller

Actors: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack, Chris Carey, Len Cariou, Peter Conboy, Walter Lewis, Noah Lee Margetts, Thomas A. McMahon, Tyler Nilson, Ike Ononye, Andrew Lee Potts, Drew Powell, Jasmine Jessica Anthony, Jessica Cail

Directors: Mikael Håfström

Country: USA

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1408 is a 2007 psychological-based horror movie based on the Stephen King short story of the same name directed by Swedish film director Mikael Håfström.

1408 provides the basis for one of the decade’s most haunting motion picture ghost stories. A good old-fashioned scarefest, 1408 is a welcome and refreshing change of pace from the flurry of gore-splattered ‘horror’ films where blood and guts replace story development that have become the genre’s norm.

Mike Enslin is a paranormal investigative author of several books, in which he searches for haunted houses / hotels but is yet to find one that is truly haunted. He travels the world to visit every supposedly haunted location he can.

Everything changes when he receives a mysterious post card that tells him to visit room 1408 in a New York hotel, The Dolphin. Enslin has not been to New York in a long time because his ex-wife lives there and it brings back memories of their little daughter, Katie, who died as a young child. Thoughts of not doing enough to prevent her death have followed him ever since. Upon calling the hotel to book room 1408, he is met with severe opposition by hotel staff to rent the room due to its long history of deaths over the years. He finds a law that states that an unoccupied hotel room must be rented at its request and uses it to his advantage. Last minute objections come in the form of the hotel manager, Gerald Olin, who tries to bribe Enslin not to stay in the room with expensive wine and a folder containing records of all of the deaths in 1408. Enslin will hear nothing of the sort and stays in the room anyway. Once he enters the room, his life changes forever.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Genres: Action | Adventure | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Actors: Matt Damon, Paddy Considine, Edgar Ramirez, Scott Adkins, Joey Ansah, Daniel Bruhl, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Dan Fredenburgh

Directors: Paul Greengrass

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This is the cinematic equivalent of lighting a high-power repeater firework and having the director strap you to it before you can retreat to a safe distance. It’s insane and it’s the Bourne Ultimatum. The third and final installment of a trilogy that has raised its genre’s bar to new heights, completing what has been an adrenaline-fueled rollercoaster ride of emotion through the murky world of government splinter cells, high-tech surveillance and assassins aplenty.

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