The Good
A well crafted movie with an interesting premise.
The Bad
No Extras. This release could have benefitted from some.
Mixing elements of Saw and Se7en (you can even see it in this films title), Thr3e is the tale of three people and their dealings with a man known as the Riddle Killer. Essentially, this Killer calls people up and asks them to solve riddles having to do with their past and they have a certain timeframe to solve the riddles or they die. Teaming up to catch this person is a seminary student named Kevin (Marc Blucas), a police profiler (Justine Waddell) and a former FBI agent (Laura Jordan). As it turns out all of these people have some sort of history with the Riddle Killer, and it soon becomes apparent that these three will ultimately have to go up against one another in order to save their own lives.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Thr3e keeps you guessing as it mixes religious overtones within the thriller genre.
Features
No Extras came with this DVD.
Video
2.35:1 - Widescreen. Of all the problems that I had with this movie this was the biggest. This film felt too structured. I felt like during the imagery laden moments I was seeing actors who were being coached by their director off screen. This really does a disservice to the genre of the horror movie because it zaps whatever fear factor their might be. From a purely technical standpoint, this movie looked great. The burned DVD that Fox sent had no hits on it and the images were quite clear. I just wish things didn’t feel as structured.
Audio
Dolby Digital. The audio was only slightly less surprising than the visuals but that probably has something to do the fact that I wasn’t expecting much in this department. When the audio isn’t underscoring the action that is happening on screen, the soundtrack to this movie is pretty tepid. They don’t beat you over the head with any of the music (which is a very good thing), however they let you know that it’s there and they’re not afraid to mix it up with the images. The audio sounds solid but nothing about it really stands out too much.
Package
Fox sent this movie in a burned format with the only packaging being a white envelope. While I certainly appreciate getting to view it, I really can’t talk about the packaging because I don’t have any real packaging to talk about.
Final Word
I think my biggest complaint about this movie is that it doesn’t really offer viewers anything that we haven’t seen before. That said, I can’t really say that this is a bad movie it just isn’t that original. Director Robby Henson seems to have a knack for broaching this kind of material (he also directed The Visitation which dealt with similar religious themes), and everything here looks how we’ve come to expect it to in these movies. There are slow motion shots, religious imagery and a sense of foreboding that seems to cloud all the characters lives. In the end the stories get resolved as much as they can, but it seems like during it’s 101 minute run there is a lot of film language to have to wade through.
Should you find yourself in the video story and you want something familiar and something new (how’s that for being diplomatic?) then Thr3e could certainly be a charm of a viewing experience.
Thr3e was released December 1, 2006.
