The Ring
Two (*1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
Samara is back. Okay…actually, she’s still around.
The infamous tape is still circulating and spreading around,
because in order to avoid being a victim of it, you must make
a copy and then have someone new watch it. Somehow it all gets
tied back to Rachel and her creepy son Aidan. However, Samara
-- the girl from the tape -- is looking for more than quenching
pangs of revenge with them. She wants to inhabit Aidan’s
body. Rachel must find some way to keep this from happening.
Is it possible, or will we all be doomed?
You know, I was sorta hoping that this movie wouldn’t
fall victim to the typical safe sequel trap. But it did. Everything
that made the first film so great and fun to watch is missing
now. What happened to writer Ehren Kruger between 2002 and
now? This effort is still better than the Japanese sequel,
however all the intelligence of this film has been drowned
(pun intended). It gets so bad that the answer to most of the
questions you could ask about the story or the plot (that you
shouldn’t have to ask in the first place) is “because
she’s dumb!”) Rachel wasn’t dumb before.
Blame it on mental instability due to supernaturally attempted
murder, but there’s no reason for her to just stop her
car for so long while herds of rabid deer chase after it. For
that matter, herds of rabid deer shouldn’t have been
chasing her car!!! What was that all about?!?
It’s just one of the many things that are left unexplained,
or just not dealt with correctly. Please…like she can
just walk right into a crime scene house or an ambulance unescorted
and have time to perform her lame investigative duties. Ugh.
That happened early on, but the rest of the film is equally
disappointing. The tape plays a very small role. It’s
left on the back burner in favor of a pathetic, unrealistic
search for Samara’s mother. The cinematography and directing
lose a lot of their mystique and creativity now that Hideo
Nakata (director of both Japanese movies) has taken the helm.
And you can just guess what having a Japanese director working
with English speaking performers did for the acting side of
things.
After the success and legitimate goodness of “The
Ring,” perhaps
I was expecting too much. The majority of the film is uninspired,
head scratching (in a bad way), more conventional suspense
schlock. With all of that said, the ending (one-liners and
eye-rolling dialogue aside) would have made a very nice, appropriate
finale. However, a couple of saving grace minutes (with hints
of pathetic) can’t blow an audience away without some
form of build-up. Simply put, it’s much, much better
than it’s Japanese sequel counterpart, “Ringu
2,” but
much, much worse than the first US film.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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