<color=darkred>Previous Review: <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.316178-2-50-Reviews-1408-2007>1408Next Review: <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.316572-2-50-Reviews-The-Ring-Two-2005>The Ring Two
$2.50 Reviews:
The Ring
http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/poste118.jpg
The Ring is a film with a couple of scary moments, an atmosphere that is sufficiently creepy, and a plot that makes about as much sense as people still using VHS tapes in 2002. One you finish watching The Ring, you'll be thinking about it not because it was any good, but because it didn't make coherent sense. It has a bunch of things happen, but little-to-no explanation given to any of it. But if you're scared of ghost stories you might have a good time.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="It's a portal INTO YOUR SOUL." Align="left"]http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/the-ri10.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The film opens up with a couple of teenagers talking about a tape. Rumor has it, if you watch the tape, you'll get a phone call directly afterward, which will tell you that you have seven days to live. And then, seven days later, you die. Of course, this is a popular thing to watch, and one of the teenagers we see at the beginning watched the tape with a group of her friends. She dies, while the other one is sent to a mental hospital because the things she saw were to traumatizing. We meet her once more later on in the film, although that appearance doesn't help anything.
We then meet Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), who is a friend of them other of the dead teenager. She's also a reporter, and starts asking questions about this girl's death. She finds out about the videotape, and goes to track it down. She finds it, watches it, receives the phone call, and is then frightened. I guess that it's not just a popular thing for teenagers to do. Logically, the best thing to do is show the tape to someone else, so she does that too. Noah (Martin Henderson) knows a thing or two about tapes, so he watches it, while remaining skeptical that it will do anything.
And then, she takes the tape home, where she has a son named Aidan (David Dorfman). He calls her "Rachel" for reasons I can't discern. Maybe he's just not a very nice person. Anyway, he ends up watching the tape too, which further leads to Rachel and Noah wanting to figure out just how to stop their inevitable deaths. It turns out that this horror movie actually is a simple mystery film with a couple of scares thrown in every now and then.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="199" Caption="I so greatly dislike this kid." Align="right"]http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/therin10.png[/Img_Inline]
The atmosphere is the best thing that The Ring has going for it. Director Gore Verbinski injects the film with an eerie tone, a washed out palette of colors and is very good at setting a somber mood. And it seems like there are a lot of scary moments to set-up, but as it turns out, there aren't. The Ring is simply not all that scary, even though the atmosphere that is built works tremendously in the film's favor.
And then there is the film's logic and plot, both of which made little sense to me. I took issue with a couple of character choices made throughout, like Rachel allowing her friend to watch the tape in the first place, or her bringing it home, despite not letting her friend's colleague see it. There's also the plot, which brings demons into the equation, as far as I can imagine, but doesn't explain their existence. Or maybe there weren't any demons in the first place. I don't know, all I can say is that I was confused, and not in a good way.
Furthering my frustration were the characters, who had no depth or real personality. There's that kid, Aidan, who acts disrespectful and creepy for absolutely no reason before he even watches the video. I can kind of understand how it could be traumatizing to watch it, (and the girl at the beginning was his cousin, so he's supposed to be dealing with that), but he's embodying the typical "creepy child" character for reasons unknown. There's also Rachel, who exists just to solve this one mystery, doing nothing more with her life and not being a good person either. Noah exists just to be Rachel's sidekick, and the only interesting character is a little girl named Samara (Daveigh Chase), who we don't get to see all that much of, unfortunately.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="Just destroy it!" Align="left"]http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/martin10.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The film also had a couple of moments when it should have ended, but it dragged on. I'm not saying that it needed to end at those moments, but it seemed like it could have and all would have been well in the world. But it had to continue, which maybe tried to resolve some other questions, but only served to extend the film's runtime which already felt slightly bloated. There's one way to rid yourself of the curse, we find out, although it doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Then again, the demon (or whatever it is) seems to make up the rules as it goes along. So do the screenwriters.
I wonder though, if anyone in the audience would find the tape itself all that scary. I watched it, and I wasn't frightened by it. It's compiled of random images strung together with static, which manages to frighten the characters in the film, but seemed dull to me. Maybe if my telephone rang when it was playing, I'd be slightly scared. But then again, when Noah watches the tape, and the phone call comes, Rachel's phone gets called despite Noah having a cell phone. I didn't get this part either.
The Ring is a film that doesn't make a lot of sense, and as a result, isn't wholly watchable. There are a couple of cheap thrills involved, but since it doesn't follow logic, whether it be ours or its own, it fails. It tries to be primarily a mystery film, but there isn't much of a mystery here, apart from the reason that a scary tape made in 2002 would be on VHS instead of DVD. I guess our demon was working with a budget.
<color=D6D9DA>_________________________________________________________________________________
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$2.50 Reviews:
The Ring
http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/poste118.jpg
The Ring is a film with a couple of scary moments, an atmosphere that is sufficiently creepy, and a plot that makes about as much sense as people still using VHS tapes in 2002. One you finish watching The Ring, you'll be thinking about it not because it was any good, but because it didn't make coherent sense. It has a bunch of things happen, but little-to-no explanation given to any of it. But if you're scared of ghost stories you might have a good time.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="It's a portal INTO YOUR SOUL." Align="left"]http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/the-ri10.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The film opens up with a couple of teenagers talking about a tape. Rumor has it, if you watch the tape, you'll get a phone call directly afterward, which will tell you that you have seven days to live. And then, seven days later, you die. Of course, this is a popular thing to watch, and one of the teenagers we see at the beginning watched the tape with a group of her friends. She dies, while the other one is sent to a mental hospital because the things she saw were to traumatizing. We meet her once more later on in the film, although that appearance doesn't help anything.
We then meet Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), who is a friend of them other of the dead teenager. She's also a reporter, and starts asking questions about this girl's death. She finds out about the videotape, and goes to track it down. She finds it, watches it, receives the phone call, and is then frightened. I guess that it's not just a popular thing for teenagers to do. Logically, the best thing to do is show the tape to someone else, so she does that too. Noah (Martin Henderson) knows a thing or two about tapes, so he watches it, while remaining skeptical that it will do anything.
And then, she takes the tape home, where she has a son named Aidan (David Dorfman). He calls her "Rachel" for reasons I can't discern. Maybe he's just not a very nice person. Anyway, he ends up watching the tape too, which further leads to Rachel and Noah wanting to figure out just how to stop their inevitable deaths. It turns out that this horror movie actually is a simple mystery film with a couple of scares thrown in every now and then.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="199" Caption="I so greatly dislike this kid." Align="right"]http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/therin10.png[/Img_Inline]
The atmosphere is the best thing that The Ring has going for it. Director Gore Verbinski injects the film with an eerie tone, a washed out palette of colors and is very good at setting a somber mood. And it seems like there are a lot of scary moments to set-up, but as it turns out, there aren't. The Ring is simply not all that scary, even though the atmosphere that is built works tremendously in the film's favor.
And then there is the film's logic and plot, both of which made little sense to me. I took issue with a couple of character choices made throughout, like Rachel allowing her friend to watch the tape in the first place, or her bringing it home, despite not letting her friend's colleague see it. There's also the plot, which brings demons into the equation, as far as I can imagine, but doesn't explain their existence. Or maybe there weren't any demons in the first place. I don't know, all I can say is that I was confused, and not in a good way.
Furthering my frustration were the characters, who had no depth or real personality. There's that kid, Aidan, who acts disrespectful and creepy for absolutely no reason before he even watches the video. I can kind of understand how it could be traumatizing to watch it, (and the girl at the beginning was his cousin, so he's supposed to be dealing with that), but he's embodying the typical "creepy child" character for reasons unknown. There's also Rachel, who exists just to solve this one mystery, doing nothing more with her life and not being a good person either. Noah exists just to be Rachel's sidekick, and the only interesting character is a little girl named Samara (Daveigh Chase), who we don't get to see all that much of, unfortunately.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="Just destroy it!" Align="left"]http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/16/09/70/40/martin10.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The film also had a couple of moments when it should have ended, but it dragged on. I'm not saying that it needed to end at those moments, but it seemed like it could have and all would have been well in the world. But it had to continue, which maybe tried to resolve some other questions, but only served to extend the film's runtime which already felt slightly bloated. There's one way to rid yourself of the curse, we find out, although it doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Then again, the demon (or whatever it is) seems to make up the rules as it goes along. So do the screenwriters.
I wonder though, if anyone in the audience would find the tape itself all that scary. I watched it, and I wasn't frightened by it. It's compiled of random images strung together with static, which manages to frighten the characters in the film, but seemed dull to me. Maybe if my telephone rang when it was playing, I'd be slightly scared. But then again, when Noah watches the tape, and the phone call comes, Rachel's phone gets called despite Noah having a cell phone. I didn't get this part either.
The Ring is a film that doesn't make a lot of sense, and as a result, isn't wholly watchable. There are a couple of cheap thrills involved, but since it doesn't follow logic, whether it be ours or its own, it fails. It tries to be primarily a mystery film, but there isn't much of a mystery here, apart from the reason that a scary tape made in 2002 would be on VHS instead of DVD. I guess our demon was working with a budget.
<color=D6D9DA>_________________________________________________________________________________
If you are a fan of my reviews, and want to boost my ego receive notifications when new reviews are posted, please join/visit this <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/2-50-Reviews>user group.
For an archive of all my previous movie reviews, please go <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.284075-2-50-Reviews-Archive>here.
