I almost didn't last 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Rating: 4/10 (23 June 2007)

I am a huge, huge fan of John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, and Tony Shalhoub. I'm slightly less fond of Stephen King, but I like some of his work.
This said, I should have LOVED 1408.
***POSSIBLE SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT****
I walked in eager. I walked out disappointed.
This is not the fault of the actors. Shalhoub and Jackson both have very small roles because the premise of the movie puts Cusack in the "guy in a locked room" scenario.
This wasn't a BAD movie, but I can't call it a good one either. It was a muddied mess that had moments of "ouch, that's just WRONG," combined with moments of "ouch, that's just painful," and moments of "oh, now THAT'S just unfortunate" with very little continuity-connectivity between them. Eislin's father shows up once, and there's no seeming connection to the rest of Mike's personal life that we see displayed while he tries to survive the room.
A previous commenter described the Olin/Enslin argument as worth watching, and I very much agree. But other than that, aside from some clever musical cues (the room almost playfully torments Enslin a little bit, and gives him one chance to get out before upping the ante...at which point it gives him the one-hour countdown clock and the titular line from the Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun.") it's mostly "stuff jumps out at you when you least expect it!" type horror that was fun when I was fourteen, and surrounded by friends my age, clutching each other in the summer while Jason stalked Camp Crystal Lake.
The rest of the movie was "let's make him relive some of his most painful experiences" mindgaming, with "let's animate the paintings in creepy ways" cliché cheesiness.
******END SPOILERS*****
I expected better from this movie with Stephen King's name attached to it, as well as the actors I mentioned above.
We never find out the origin of the evil. We never get to see the evil defeated, though we can presume maybe it was defeated.
And the ending was just a jarring "What?!" moment.
Wait for it to come on cable. I wouldn't have minded paying for it as a matinée, but I'm feeling a bit shortchanged for having paid opening night prices for it.