Terrible. some spoilers.

Rating: Null/10 (28 May 2004)

Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is a young journalist with a divorced husband, Noah (Martin Henderson), and a son, Aidan (David Dorfman). Her niece was recently found dead with a look of pure shock embedded in her face as if something scared her to death. Upon learning that her niece's three friends died at the same time, too, and hearing about a disturbing videotape that is said to kill you seven days after watching it, Rachel comes into the possession of that same tape. Now, as time grows short, Rachel and Noah race to save their lives from impending doom and discover what the tape has to do with a tragedy-stricken horse ranch and a very strange little girl named Samara (Daveigh Chase). The original "Ringu" was a work of art. it was scary...no, terrifying, original, creepy, and inspirational. When Hollywood wasn't doing so good, what was it time to do? remake it, except replace engaging characters with annoying ones, devoid any suspense and replace it with cheesy writing, and ruin what could have been a great remake completely. Thats not to say the big budget wasn't good for nothing, though.....the direction is stylish, the cinematography is okay, and there were 2 (yes, only two) scary parts: When they discover Katie's corpse in the closet and when the cursed tape is first shown. aside from that, it's quite boring. Just terrible. My rating for "The ring":1.5/10.
About the DVD: Dreamworks has released an uninteresting DVD for the film. The 1:85.1 aspect ratio has lots of obvious edge enhancement and....surprisingly...some grain as well. The colors are ugly (The dark green cinematography certainly didn't help) and skin tones are bland. The audio, however, is excellent. The surround sound effects are quite good and make the film more jumpy than it really is. For extras we get exactly two crappy features--the first being billed as a "Documentary", when it is really only a slew of deleted scenes woven together seamlessly. The second feature is a trailer. The DVD's respectability is only a notch above the film itself. My rating for the DVD: 3.5/10.