Thr3e, dir. Robby Henson (2006)

NIKKI says:
Things we knew about Thr3e before we watched it:

1. It's from 20th Century Fox's new Fox Faith division, for religion-friendly movies.
2. It's based on a novel by religious-thriller writer, Ted Dekker.
3. Internet rumblings have compared the film to Donald Kaufman's implausible, unfilmable script, The 3, outlined in the film, Adaptation.
4. It was universally panned by critics, receiving just 6% on Rotten Tomatoes.
5. There are hundreds of good movies on DVD in our house.

And yet we proceeded. So, basically, the fact that it was absolute shit, full of religious gobbledegook, badly acted and directed, with cheesy effects, a final act that boggled the mind for how stupid it was, and made us feel like we'd wasted precious minutes of our lives is entirely our fault. I accept the blame.

I would and will do it again.

0.5/5

STEVE says:
Just so we're clear: Thr3e sucked.

But I'll get to that in a minute.

Right now, let's clear something up: Thr3e is NOT in any way based on Donald Kaufman's screen play from Adaptation. I want to put a stop to that rumour right now. It's based on a novel by Ted Dekker, and it's quite possible that Kaufman's script (called The 3, incidentally) is a piss-take on that novel because it's so preposterous that a movie should ever be made out of such a story.

But Internet chatter, as is so often the case, flies in the face of such things as facts, and the idea that Thr3e and The 3 are one and the same has become indisputable.

In The 3, the serial killer, his latest victim/hostage and the cop are all the same person; it's a case of split personality that ends with a chase sequence.

Donald: The killer flees on horseback with the girl. The cop is after them on a motorcycle. It's like a battle between motors and horses.
Charlie: They're all still one person, right?
Donald: Yeah, hey, that's the big pay-off.

As there is no horse/motorcycle chase scene in Thr3e, you'd think that the chatter would cease, but no. It may be that because of such chatter I saw the ending to this one coming before we even brought it home. It may be, also, that I was prepared for the eventual outcome because of poor screen writing, but we'll never know. Damned Internet.

I was already expecting the split personality thing, so it was no great shock when it was revealed that our hero, Kevin Parson, might just be the killer. When his wannabe girlfriend follows him to the basement of his childhood home and sees Kevin and the killer standing toe to toe, I - for one fleeting moment - thought the movie was absolutely brilliant. The bad screen writing that gave away Kevin's split personality from the word go suddenly became a very clever bait-and-switch. I was cheering the movie, lauding the writers, chastising myself and jeering the critics all at once. How could they not love this?

As it does, the fleeting moment fled and the girlfriend herself was revealed to be yet another part of Kevin's split personality, taking me back to my original presumption that the movie was shite.

Way to ruin a great gimmick, fellas.

0.5/5