a daring, intelligent, suspenseful modern thriller ...

Rating: 9/10 (9 March 2003)

I thought this was an excellent movie, and its high quality surprised me. Long before this ever came out, I was a big fan of the original Japanese version and when I heard Hollywood were doing a remake, I thought "oh no..."
However the result is very good. Okay, granted, parts of it are slow and cliched. But the good qualities by far outweigh the bad.
A modern horror movie with hardly any violence or gore? Yes, that is the Ring! As a result it was panned. I think it was brave of the filmmakers to make a modern horror movie without buckets of gratutious gore. They do throw in some shock moments that are very disappointing (they're there to make the movie more scary apparently but doesn't work - mere Hollywood stereotype pandering) but for the most part its psychological suspense, not physical.
It was panned too for not being suspenseful enoguh. True, there are very little action sequences. This is more like reading a book than watching a movie. It is a mystery thats all about story, and if you warm to it, then it WILL be suspenseful for you.
Naomi Watts (so vastly different than in her excellent performance in David Lynch's "Mullholland Drive") is a great actress; and her intelligence and grace really benefits the movie. Also check out Brian Cox's cameo. This excellent actor steals the show in his few minutes of on-screen time.
Compared to the original, which just went for unexplained weird, this movie makes the attempt to explain many things... which some felt weakened it. I disagree: I think it makes the movie more complex and intriguing.
On a final note: the opening scene. It starts out very cliched, like the start of a typical Hollywood slasher movie (the scene with Drew Barrymore in the beginning of "Scream" gave birth to this): two young girls, alone in a dark house on a rainy night, one of them walking around clutching a cordless phone. I think the filmmakers were not being unoriginal, but rather starting the movie this way on purpose: making you think you were about to see a typical horror/slasher, then changing course and delivering this instead -
a daring, intelligent, suspenseful modern thriller. Watch it!
BEFORE YOU DIE YOU SEE ... THE RING!
9/10