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Life & Arts

Next up: tired themes, hot cops

Hopkins returns as psychopathic killer; 
‘Shaun of the Dead' stars return as officers 

by JACOB BRISSE
The Daily Cougar 

Brand-name actors, recycled legal dramas and reused horror films await anyone who dares to brave theaters this weekend. Fracture finds Anthony Hopkins putting on his ingenious psychopath suit again, this time as Ted Crawford, a wealthy engineer whose specialty is finding structural flaws in aerodynamic design. When this cold, calculating control freak discovers his beautiful wife Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz) is having an affair with Detective Rob Nunally (Billy Burke), he calmly plans the perfect crime. 

Nunally arrives on the scene to discover his previously unnamed mistress shot, but not dead, on the floor of Crawford's home. Strangely, Crawford openly admits to shooting Jennifer, even going so far as to sign a confession. Assistant District Attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) steps in and reluctantly takes the case. It should be an easy last assignment for Will before he cashes in and heads to corporate law, but the supposedly airtight evidence falls apart when Nunally's affair becomes public and his credibility is called into question. 

If you can look past a few plot holes and improbabilities, there are plenty of intricate mind games between Beachum and Crawford to enjoy. For Hopkins, though, it's all old hat.

Vacancy, the latest predictable horror flick, stars Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as bickering married couple David and Amy Fox. They're on their last trip together before finalizing their divorce when their car breaks down and they're forced to take refuge in the nearest shabby motel.

When David decides to watch a few unmarked video tapes left in their "honeymoon suite," he notices something about the library of gory slasher flicks: Not only are they real, they were all filmed in the exact same room they're staying in. 

In come various men in masks who torture the couple for cheap thrills, recording everything on hidden cameras for later sale. The two are left to either wait and hope or stop arguing and find a way out. The movie-within-a-movie premise can't help but highlight the fact that Vacancy is essentially the B-movie its villains are making, but it does provide some good scares.

The weekend is rounded out by the release of Hot Fuzz, a British cop comedy from the Shaun of the Dead guys. In Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) plays a hotshot cop from the mean streets of London. Angel is always on top of his game, and the rest of London's force looks inept in comparison.

To solve this problem, Angel's superiors send him to a smalltime town where there hasn't been a recorded murder in 20 years. 

Angel is partnered up with the overeager and naive constable Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The job seems simple in the beginning with the two only having to deal with petty crime -- shoplifting, underage drinking and a man storing guns in his barn, to name a few. But the sleepy town is soon rocked with strange incidents that only Angel seems to be concerned with. 

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