'The Simpsons Movie' review

Rating: ***1/2 out of ****

No one, not even Matt Groening himself, could've imagined that ‘The Simpsons’ would become as big as it did. Nor could anyone anticipate how much of a cultural phenomenon it has become. ‘The Simpsons’ may be the only show on the air that is older than its target audience. Going into its nineteenth year on the air, ‘The Simpsons’ have raised a generation. Homer Simpson has become the most iconic cartoon character since Bugs Bunny. With such a legacy, it was inevitable the show would take the leap to the big screen. Those anticipating the movie and those who have an aversion to the idea have come in equal numbers. Many seem to think that after 18 years the movie has nowhere to go but down. But it’s not as if this film was thought up overnight. Does anyone remember the ‘Camp Krusty’ episode? I read that that story was supposed to be the original idea for the movie. That shows how long this movie has been on the creators’ minds.

“Why would anyone pay to see something they can see for free on TV?” Homer asks the audience. It’s a good question. People will pay though. If not, for any other reason, than to satisfy their curiosity as to what exactly has been brewing for 18 years. People often say that a movie made from a TV show will just feel like an extended episode. Of course it will. It is the same characters in their usual universe. Unless the creators take a long drive off the path of the show (i.e. ‘Beavis & Butthead Do America’), how could it not?

In this extended Simpsons episode, we find Springfield has become the most polluted town in the history of the world. This is due to the resident’s habitual dumping in Lake Springfield, topped off by Homer dumping an entire silo of pig waste. President Schwarzenegger, under pressure from the EPA, declares that the city be sealed off from the rest of the US. This leads to dire consequences and it is up to America’s favorite family to save the day.

The plot may sound thin, but it leaves plenty of room for the richly textured jokes and satire that the Simpsons are known for - and that shows like ‘Family Guy’ later bastardized. We see the usual types - shameless plugs for the Fox network (yes, even in a feature film), jabs at politicians, government incompetence, and Homer hurting himself in so many ways it would make the Three Stooges cringe. The show takes advantage of the newfound leeway brought with a film, pushing the envelope while not intentionally trying to offend. Its humor always feels light-hearted. It also features some of the most heart-felt and poignant moments this family has endured. There is a moment between Homer and Marge that is so quiet and affecting that Julie Kavner’s (Marge) voice even resonates differently – we hear Julie breaking down as well as Marge.

The higher budget has allowed a face-lift for the animation. Computer animation is used sparsely and creatively. It never feels distracting; rather enriching the universe the Simpsons occupy. Shots and sequences are possible now that could never work on the show. Supposedly, the movie has set a record for writers on a single script (11). Normally this many writers implies countless rewrites and modifications. Here, it just happens that 11 writers have an equal love for the material. The jokes are fresh and non-stop, from the opening Fox logo to the end of the credits (stay for them, it’s well worth it).

‘The Simpsons’ movie may be compared to the last episode of ‘Seinfeld’, where it has been built-up for so long that there is no way the fans will get what they expect. There will be die-hard fans that are impossible to satisfy. I have been a fan of the show since the beginning, have seen every episode multiple times, and am still an avid watcher. This movie did not disappoint. After 18 years of anticipation, I feel it was well worth the wait. ‘The Simpsons Movie’ is entertaining, funny, heart-warming and flat-out ridiculous. Though the small screen will suffice, I would love to see them back on the big screen. And if Maggie’s first word is any sign, they will be.

The gang's all here! 'The Simpsons Movie' is in theaters now.

'Knocked Up' review

Rating: ***1/2 out of ****

Coming from a small town, my friends and I didn’t have much to do except go to work, come home and party, BBQ and talk about our big plans for the future. It’s fitting then that I could instantly relate to the characters in ‘Knocked Up’. That’s what makes Judd Apatow’s follow-up to ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’ so great – anyone can understand it. It is so instantly relatable on a wide scale that anyone (working professional, slacker seasonalist, stay at home parent) can understand who the characters are and what their motivations are. Moreover, they are likeable people that I wouldn’t mind knowing and hanging out with. Apatow guaranteed this by making them multi-layered people of right here and now. There is no generation gap here. This movie is so current the characters literally talk about going to see ‘Spider-man 3’, and re-watching ‘Munich’.

Seth Rogan stole the show in ‘Virgin’, at times upstaging the great Steve Carell. Here he plays Ben, a slacker who lives with his friends. Ben has a career goal: start a website highlighting all the best nude scenes from movies. Had he done a quick search on Google, he’d find several already in existence. One night at a bar, Ben meets Alison (Katherine Heigl), an up and coming executive at E! who has just been promoted and is out celebrating. After a few too many, they end up back at Alison’s apartment and due to a miscommunication, end up having unprotected sex. Sure enough, a few weeks later Alison is calling Ben to fill him in that she’s (drum roll…) pregnant! Ben’s reaction to the news is priceless. Meanwhile, Alison lives with her sister, Debbie (Leslie Mann) and her husband, Pete (Paul Rudd), who question Ben’s abilities as a father. They’re having problems with their own marriage. Their relationship is a nice juxtaposition to Ben and Alison’s. While one relationship is struggling to begin, the other is almost ending. Paul Rudd once again is brilliant as he plays a man who feels as if life kicked in a little too quickly. In one scene, he summarizes marriage to Ben as an unfunny version of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ that lasts forever. Personally, some episodes of ‘Raymond’ can feel that way, but I digress.

From here, the story follows Ben and Alison over the nine months trying to develop a relationship but mostly trying to get to know one another. A lesser film would have had Ben trying to find any and every excuse to skip out on his duties or doing the bare minimum. Not here, as Rogan makes Ben a young man willing to change and mature due to his newfound responsibilities. You can tell that behind the profanity and razor-sharp wit, Apatow is a true romantic. The chemistry between Ben and Alison feels real. They grow to care for one another, never feeling forced or schmaltzy. Like ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’, here is a film that finds the perfect balance between bawdy, gross-out humor and a sweet, relationship comedy. It walks the line well, spilling equally into both territories.

Apatow has a talent for taking complex situations, which take place everyday, and placing them at the forefront of his movies. For example, he covered lifelong sexual/social ineptitude in ‘Virgin’. ‘Knocked Up’ handles the issue of ill-legitimate children. Apatow does not shy away from taboo subject matter; he places it right on display without it feeling gratuitous or exploitative. He’s making the freshest, most honest mainstream comedies today. Take the issue of abortion. It is inevitable that in this story – as in life – the question of abortion would rise. Apatow handles the situation so maturely that both left and right wings will be satisfied.

Running a little long (129 minutes), ‘Knocked Up’ feels like the extended edition of the DVD that made it to theaters. Nevertheless, I could sit and watch these characters time and time again. Should Apatow decide to revisit them, it’ll feel like catching up with old friends – they’ll just be taking their kids to go see ‘Indiana Jones 4’.

'28 Weeks Later' review

Rating: ** out of ****

(*NOTE* - I am fully aware that in this franchise, the ‘infected’ are not technically zombies. Whatever. For argument’s sake, we will call them zombies, as beyond that technicality they share many zombie traits.)

‘28 Weeks Later’ may be the horror film with the most political commentary since George Romero’s ‘Dawn of The Dead’. Though its messages are obvious and thinly textured to those of a Romero classic, I was glad they were there. We normally are not given those privileges with the average zombie film. The film gets an ‘A’ for effort.

‘28 Weeks Later’ is the sequel to the 2002 modern day classic ‘28 Days Later’. Danny Boyle reinvented the zombie film with his low budget, intimate account of a zombie plague infecting Britain. Perhaps Boyle’s film worked so well because it had a lower budget than most horror films, and so they relied on the excellent script by Alex Garland. It featured complex ideas on wartimes and survivalism, appealing relationships and true jump-out-of-your-seat scares, producing one of the scariest modern horror films. This time around, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo takes the reigns as director with Boyle serving as an executive producer. Fresnadillo and Boyle approach similar material very differently. One with substance and style, the other more style. It made me wonder of what ‘Aliens’ would have been like had it been directed by Tony Scott.

‘28 Weeks Later’ picks up, well, 28 weeks after the Rage virus has spread throughout the city of London. The city has been quarantined, all those infected either starved to death or wiped-out by American military forces. The US army declares that the war against infection has been won, and that the reconstruction of the country can begin. In the first wave of returning refugees, a family is reunited – the father (Robert Carlyle) left his wife to die in the outbreak and is now coming together with his children (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton), who we assume were evacuated before things became really bad. Why the father and his wife did not evacuate with them is never really made clear. The children must be secret agents though, because they are able to sneak past American forces and travel to their old home in the danger zone. Here they find a survivor who comes back into the safe zone with them. The survivor does not show signs of infection. Later, it is discovered that the survivor is infected, though shows no signs. The theory is presented that their blood may contain natural biological immunities to the plague. One thing leads to another and the virus is once again spreading like wild fire through the safe zone. A race against time ensues between the US government’s alarmist plans to ‘shoot them all and let God sort them out’, and a military nurse (Rose Byrne) who wants to experiment with the immune blood to find a cure.

Where the first film succeeded so well with its small scale, well-developed relationships and choice scares, the sequel kicks it into overdrive with more blood, more jumps, and more action - with cameras so shaky I honestly could not tell what was happening until the moment was over. That being said, that same technique is also useful in selling some of the films freakiest moments. ‘28 Weeks Later’ is a political parabol, exemplifying everything from the war in Iraq to Hurricane Katrina – though it never decides what point it’s trying to make with its analogies. It begins well enough with a man who seems somewhat passive about leaving his wife to die and lying to his children about it. This would have been a great story to develop further. Unfortunately, the film leaves this point behind when the chasing and killing begins. The characters are left underdeveloped and the film has an ending that feels vague, with no hope of a cure - even with the potential of one. It also can’t seem to make up its mind on how smart or strong these zombies really are. Some are killed by being shot once or twice - as they are still human after all. Others seem near invincible. Most of the zombies are pure rage and instinct. Hunting humans and feeding is all they know. Yet one such zombie seems to be smart enough to evade all authorities and traps, popping up whenever the plot needs him to. Some fans of the film suggest that the strain of the disease is evolved and more potent this time around, yet the film puts forth no theories or points to back up such a claim.

Where the first film was compelling and thoughtful with very scary moments, this film is a video game. Every scene and new situation feels like a level of a game, ranging from streets and cemeteries to fields and subways. The infected are merely targets. There is even a scene shown in the first person, and though it is the most suspenseful of the film, I bet some people in the theater were reaching for joysticks that were not there. If only ‘Doom’ could have been this much fun!

‘28 Weeks Later’ cannot hold a flame to its predecessor. I bet many die-hard fans will be calling for Danny Boyle to come back. If you leave your brain at the door while picking up your vomit bag, you can enjoy its aesthetic qualities and political undertones - all the while cringing pleasurably. I’m sure many zombie-lovers will eat it up with a blood-dripping spoon. One has to wonder what the fate of ‘28 Months Later’ will hold. ‘28 Years’? ‘28 Decades’? Who knows?

'F4 - Rise of The Silver Surfer' review

Rating: *** out of ****

There is a clever scene in Wes Craven’s ‘Scream 2’ that has a classroom of characters sitting, debating sequels and whether many hold up to their successors. It’s a funny little scene with some well thought dialogue. In it, they debunk that ‘Aliens’ is not better than Ridley Scott’s first film, that ‘T2’ is not better than ‘The Terminator’, but they all agree that ‘The Godfather: Part II’ is better than the first. I agree with the first point and disagree with the second two.

Tim Story's ‘Fantastic Four – Rise of The Silver Surfer’ may not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as ‘Aliens’, ‘T2’ or ‘The Godfather’, but it is a sequel that overshadows its predecessor quite significantly. I would have listed the first ‘Fantastic Four’ with my top ten worst films of the year, had I compiled said list that year. The second may not make my ‘best of’ list, but it won’t make the worst either.

‘F4 – ROTSS’ picks up some time after the first film. We see the current adventures of The Fantastic Four, comprised of Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic, who can stretch his body out ‘till next week), Sue Storm (The Invisible Woman, self-explanatory), Johnny Storm (The Human Storm, who can spontaneously combust as well as fly), and Ben Grimm (The Thing, who is literally a walking hunk of granite). In the last film, the team developed super-powers by being exposed to ‘cosmic radiation’, and all they could say is ‘cool!’ This time around, we’re on the eve of Reed and Sue’s wedding, which is on its fifth attempt –superheroes have busy lives and can’t always fit a wedding in to their schedules. Meanwhile, the Earth is experiencing mystifying activities that take shape in the forms of snow in Egypt, massive blackouts and craters large enough to suck in a city. The Human Torch discovers in an impressive chase sequence that the cause of these activities is a figure known as The Silver Surfer. The surfer is paving the way for Galactus, a giant being that comes in the form of a storm and devours planets. Now, the Fantastic Four must team up with the US Government as well as their nemesis Dr. Doom – making an obligatory return from the first film – to capture the surfer and save the Earth.

While the sequel plays with the same cartoonish logic and humor as its predecessor, the fresh elements in this chapter elevate the movie. In this day, where more people care that Paris Hilton goes to jail than what’s happening with the war, the obsession over a superhero’s wedding is played off as a witty satire on our celebrity obsessed culture. I also enjoy the way the Fantastic Four deal with authority and government figures. They aren’t rogue heroes above the law. They collaborate with the military, and thusly the military seeks their help. You’d never see Batman or Spiderman do that. There are also deeper elements within the group of heroes. There is a subplot where Reed and Sue contemplate leaving to lead ‘normal’ lives, leaving Ben and Johnny to contemplate the future of the team. It was curious to me why Sue complained so much about being in the public eye, when she could make herself invisible.

The high point of the film is the title character. The surfer – played by Doug Jones and voiced by Lawrence Fishburne - excels the story. He has an element of mystery and wisdom to him and contains powers that make Reed Richards look like Stretch Armstrong. His action sequences are more exciting than all others are, and when he brings Galactus to Earth, it involves some breathtaking visuals of the planet literally being swallowed in a storm. I would like to have known a bit more about him though. Alas, we’re given just as much as we need to know in order to empathize with him, but without a look at his home world or knowing how he came to work for Galactus’, we really can’t care or hate the character as much as it feels we’re supposed to.

The major hindrance on the picture though is the rehash of Dr. Doom. His lackluster return feels tacked on as a shameless ‘guess-who’s-back’ motive and lowers the bar for the film. He was not required in any fashion and that puts a damper on an otherwise fine climactic battle. The writers would have been well advised to wait and bring him back in the third installment.

Still, ‘Fantastic Four – Rise of The Silver Surfer’ is a pleasant surprise given my disdain for the first installment. After a summer of mostly letdowns, it was nice to sit back, let go and actually feel that inner child in me excited about what was happening on screen. When the surfer skids down the side of a building, shattered glass flying like mists of water, all I could say was, ‘cool!’

The Anti-Spielberg Movement?

The other day I was reading an article by Rick McGinnis, the Entertainment writer for ‘The Metro’. In his article entitled ‘Studio closed, but not forgotten’, he mentions how TV writer/executive producer Aaron Sorkin has a deal that may see one his scripts directed by Steven Spielberg. McGinnis goes on to say, and I quote, “which is, to be frank, no longer the big deal it used to be.” A few days ago, my friend Bryan and I were talking about George Lucas and the innovations he has brought to the world of film, technically speaking. Bryan claimed that George Lucas has done more for the world of film than Steven Spielberg has, and that Spielberg hasn’t really done that much. I am not here to debate the Lucas matter, though I’m interested in people’s opinions. However, what he said struck a chord with me. In the last few years I’ve been hearing plenty of comments like those of Bryan’s and Mr. McGinnis’; people saying that Spielberg doesn’t hold the weight he used to, or that his hey-days are behind him and that he should sit back and produce for Dreamworks; that he’s only making ‘Indiana Jones 4’ as a ‘back-to-the-well’ move. I say that just because things change, doesn’t mean they haven’t stayed the same.

People’s basis for these Anti-Spielberg statements tends to be two points: economic and artistic. People think that just because a Spielberg film may not have grossed ‘Jurassic Park’ sized numbers, it means it’s not a success. As well if he’s not making ‘Schindler’s List’ every year then he’s making unimportant work. Sure, ‘The Terminal’ may have been a financial let-down, but ‘War of The World’s’ broke box office records, raking in hundreds of millions worldwide. Sure, he may have been phoning it in with ‘Catch Me If You Can’, but don’t forget ‘Munich’ – arguably one of the most poignant political films in decades.

Spielberg is criticized all too often for making movies that are too ‘mainstream’. He is a businessperson as well as a filmmaker, a fact he has never tried to hide. He is a tycoon in the truest sense of the word. He believes in making commercially viable art, yet art all the same. Moreover, in spite of his missteps, he has never had significant or prolonged failure.

If a filmmaker wants to branch out and try some different things, maybe smaller things, does not make those things terrible. Spielberg seems to have a stigma attached to him that everything he does must be ‘Close Encounters’ or ‘Jaws’. ‘A.I.’ may have missed the mark, but many critics commended him for trying something as far away from his normal style as he could, though dealing with familiar subject matter. He took a risk and risks don’t always work. But this is the man who brought us ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘E.T.’, has held the record of ‘highest grossing film of all time’ at least twice, and was the first filmmaker to break $100 million at the box office while simultaneously inventing the summer blockbuster (‘Jaws;). After what he has done, he deserves to take some risks.

I loved ‘The Terminal’. I thought it was a small, sweet film that was poignant in its own way. It brought to mind ‘Forrest Gump’, though on a smaller scale. I also thought ‘War of The Worlds’ had many glaring problems and was not his finest, but it was a huge financial success - which would hopefully silence many critics who say Spielberg can’t pull in a crowd anymore. Then there’s ‘Minority Report’, which I thought was one his best works in a decade, and as Roger Ebert stated, “This film is such a virtuoso high-wire act, daring so much, achieving it with such grace and skill…"Minority Report" reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place.”

The point is that just because he may make some movies that are creatively askew from his normal endeavors, doesn’t make them worse. Moreover, if some of them flop, you know he’ll come back, as he’s done multiple times. Never forget that he is the most financially successful and legendary director of all time (I’m not going to say ‘greatest’ because that is very subjective); therefore he is not going to bow out so easily.

And as for the ‘back-to-the-well’ statement about ‘Indy 4’, just because you may be going back to the well, it doesn’t mean you can’t draw fresh water.

'Transformers' review

Rating: *1/2 out of ****

Who knew that super advanced robots from outer space would be so shallow? If I traveled across the gulf of space, over god knows how many millions of light-years, I’d have something better to say. Alas, the Transformers have come all this way to spout cheesy one-liners, cornball dialogue and advertisements for EBay. Oh well, at least a lot of stuff blows up real good.

Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers’ is the live-action adaptation of the classic Hasbro toy line, which has earth vehicles transforming into giant fighting robots. That’s about the extent of the film’s storyline too, the rest of it being a non-stop car commercial and showcase of explosions, everything we’ve come to expect from a Michael Bay flick.

What little story we’re given involves an on-going battle between The Autobots and The Decepticons over the All-Spark, the MacGuffin of the story (Google it). It is a device that can create life out of anything mechanical – including Mountain Dew machines, X-Boxes, and any other product that is convenient for product placement. The All-Spark has found its way to Earth and so the Autobots and Decepticons must duke it out here over their prize. A brief back-story is provided about an explorer who stumbled upon Megatron (the leader of the Decepticons) buried in a glacier a couple hundred years ago. The US government has Megatron now, and so the Decepticons must find him and release him as well as find the All-Spark. The information as to the location of the All-Spark has been imbedded into the lenses of the explorer’s eyeglasses (some how), whose modern day descendent, Sam Whitwicky possesses and is trying to sell on EBay. If the Transformers got their info from EBay and the web, then why couldn’t they set up an EBay account and purchase the glasses?

The audience would be better off learning about the Autobots from the internet, as the movie spends very little time establishing any of them. Most of the human characters suffer the same fate. At least there’s a nice ‘worlds apart yet the same underneath it all’ message tacked on in the end to make us feel warm and fuzzy.

Since the Decepticons will surely destroy Sam to get the glasses, The Autobots have sent a guardian to protect him until the rest of them can arrive in a self-referential ‘Armageddon’ inspired sequence. This guardian is Bumblebee, an old Chevy Camaro who seems to be very sensitive about his aesthetic appearance.

After that, ‘Transformers’ becomes a slick commercial with pockets of non-stop explosions. My hat goes off to Industrial Light and Magic for creating some of the most realistic digital creatures ever seen on film. That being said, many of the battles are shot in extreme close-ups, with shaky cameras and choppy editing that you get lost in the mess of it all. Even when you can see what's happening, a lot of the action goes on and on and on ad nauseam.

The script is uninspired and contains dialogue that almost made me laugh aloud - and not in the good way. I enjoy Shia LeBeouff as an actor and he does what he can with the material given, but I did not believe that his character would be considered a nerd or be picked on at school. I also didn’t believe his attraction to Megan Fox’s character. There is no chemistry between them, besides her being extremely physically attractive, but a blind man could see that.

Almost every government or military character is moronic, making decisions that only endanger humans further. Would the US Secretary of Defense (Jon Voight) be left with no military bodyguards while an invasion of Decepticons is going on? If the military held the All-Spark, why decide to hide it in a major populated city where the Decepticons will come to get it, destroying the city and its inhabitants in order to retrieve it? Because the script calls for it as an excuse to get the Transformers into an urban area for the climax and an urban setting is always more exciting than a desolate one. Why sink some vanquished Decepticons to the bottom of the ocean as a cover-up? Did it not occur to the government that studying them would help battle them in the sequel? I guess the military doesn’t think as far ahead as Hollywood does.

Many people I talk to say that I’m reading excessively into this; that it’s based on a toy line, it’s a Michael Bay film, and so I should accept it for what it is and not expect too much from it. I don’t think expecting certain elements of realism or character is expecting too much. If you want to adapt a toy/cartoon into a live action film and make it believable in a live action world, then there are basic rules of realism, physics and common sense that must apply. ‘Transformers’ gets the physics and realism of the robots accurate. They look and feel real; textured with thousands of moving parts, with real gravity and weight to them. It’s everyone and everything else around the robots that are not believable. The filmmakers spent so much time making the Transformers themselves seem real that it’s the characters, story and plot that feel fake.

Perhaps 'Transformers' makes a good statement about the state of modern movies. After all, when every one of the digital characters are more believable than every flesh and blood character, that must be saying something.

'1408' review

Rating: *** out of ****

“Hotel rooms are a naturally creepy place”, Mike Enslin utters into his tape recorder, practically his only form of outward communication in Mikael Hafstrom’s ‘1408’. John Cusak plays Mike, a horror writer who spends his time traveling across America debunking supposedly haunted hotels, writing about it and raking in the dough from the fan boys. ‘1408’ is the most recent adaptation of a Stephen King thriller, and one of the best to come along in a while.

One day Mike gets an anonymous postcard telling him not to stay in room 1408 of The Dolphin Hotel, New York City. The fact that the numbers in 1408 add up to 13 is sure to be a popular trivia question somewhere in the near future. Mike being the brazen type, immediately hops a plane to New York to stay in the room. “It’s an evil f-ing room”, warns Gerald Olin, the Manager of the hotel played by Samuel L. Jackson in a role that didn’t necessarily require a star such as him. He makes more than due however, dutifully warning Cusak’s character and the audience with the horror stories of the 56 people who have died in room 1408 since the hotel opened. It is true that the imagination is far scarier than anything that can be shown. I found myself more anxious during Jackson’s tales than any other time, visualizing scenes more intense and horrific than anything the film had to offer. That is how ‘1408’ gets its scares. It is purely psychological, and even though its effects run thin over the course of its run-time, it is still relatively effective up until the last frame.

Enslin – almost mocking Olin – refuses to be persuaded and enters 1408. Almost immediately the shocks begin, subtly and then building ever more intensely. The beauty of ‘1408’ is the ingenious use of the hotel room. I was reminded of two other recent hotel thrillers, ‘Vacancy’ and ‘Bug’, in the creative ways to use the same set repeatedly and yet the setups always seem fresh. We’re always in the same room, but at times it feels like separate environments.

One of the most interesting aspects of ‘1408’ is how Cusak remains alone for two thirds of the film and yet has consistent dialogue. It is very easy to have a character speaking to themselves and have it come across as forced, but here it works. The film takes a page from Zemeckis’s ‘Cast Away’, using the tape recorder as Cusak’s ‘Wilson’ – an inanimate device that allows us to know what he is thinking and feeling. As the story progresses and Mike descends further into madness, the tape recorder becomes less involved as the character just thinks aloud. This is believable by now, as much of what he says is reactionary and often has him babbling almost incoherently.

‘1408’ does take some steps off the path. What actually takes place in the room is not as foreboding as the buildup given by the Manager. You can feel the terror dialed down a bit by the PG-13 rating. There is a false ending sequence, which seemed unnecessary and actually takes us out of the film for an awkward moment. Jackson shows up once again in the third act for an obligatory cameo, which, once again breaks some great tension. The largest curiosity I had however was that it seemed the room could not hurt Mike, it just attempts to drive him mad or to hurt himself. There is a point where a ghost appears, swings a weapon at him, and does not connect. There is another moment when a ghost seems to be trying to push him out a window, but is actually just trying to scare him into falling. It seemed to me that Mike would clue in to this fact relatively quickly and then slowly become desensitized to the room’s threats – making it ineffectual. The room felt like a bully, where if you stood up to it and showed you weren’t afraid of it, it would leave you alone.

Nevertheless, ‘1408’ provides some strong thrills and cold chills, coupled with strong performances by Cusak and Jackson. It may not be as great a shocker as some of King’s others (The Shining, The Stand, IT) but it does its job well and with enthusiasm - and in a time of countless by-the-numbers thrillers and timid horror films, that's fine by me.