Another pointless Hollywood remake

Rating: 5/10 (30 August 2003)

The Ring is yet another Hollywood remake of a foreign language film which is barely 5 years old. As you would expect it is flashier, more action-packed, and loaded with tricksy camerawork and CGI effects, but it loses out in the creepy/suspense stakes. Whereas the original Ring was dark, grainy, and built up a sustained tension, this version is bright and colorful, full of vibrant images and packed with booga-booga jump scares no doubt aimed at pleasing the 18 year olds raised on a diet of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Director Gore Verbinski has taken a classic and genuinely scary ghost story and turned it into your standard disposable Hollywood blockbuster fare. The industries constant remaking of recently acclaimed foreign movies (eg Les Visiteurs/Just Visiting, Insomnia, Open Your Eyes/Vanilla Sky) borders on insulting. Subtitles aren't *that* hard to read are they?