A captivating and terrifying mystery.

Rating: 9/10 (13 August 2016)

First, it's important to know that this movie is an American remake of the Japanese 1998 film, Ring (which I'll call by its literal title Ringu for this review), which is itself based on the novel of the same name by Koji Suzuki. The critical and commercial success of The Ring brought in a whole slew of remakes of J-Horror movies, like Dark Water, Pulse, One Missed Call, and most successfully, Ju-On The Grudge(both the original and remake are quite good, though the original is perhaps a little better). And this is a remake that outshines the original.
The plot is simple; Rachel, played by Naomi Watts and her ex-husband Noah, played by Martin Henderson, have a week to answer the mystery of a cursed videotape, which has claimed the lives of several teenagers. Telling anymore spoils the mystery, which is the heart of the movie. A fair bit of it is different from Ringu, but for the majority, these changes are far better for the movie.
The intrigue of the tape and it's background is the real grip of the movie. The contents of the tape itself are incredibly disturbing, and at first appear as a seemingly random string of images. Each little piece gets slowly revealed to the viewer, and you begin to piece it all together, without the film telling it all to you. You solve the mystery and are invested in it just as much as our heroes.
And thankfully, these heroes are excellently played. Watts performance of Rachel is a grounded, level-headed, and intuitive one, making Rachel a sleuth in all but name. Henderson brings some much-needed humour to the earlier parts of the movie before the horror starts to creep in, but soon reveals a versatile and human nature to Noah. Brian Cox (without saying too much) also has a few unfortunately brief, but powerful scenes, that bring real gravity to the situation. Our villain probably has less than 15 minutes of screen time, but her presence is constantly felt throughout the last half. The other actors aren't all that much to write home about however. They're far from bad, but instead feel only like links to where the plot will take the mystery, or to tell you about some dark event.
The Ring is a great balance of mystery and horror. While Ringu perhaps focused too much on the mystery, and could only scare you a handful of times, The Ring has scares spaced out sporadically to keep you on your toes. There are jump scares, but a lot of the terror is from what you don't see. As mentioned earlier, you constantly feel the villain's presence, just breathing on the back of your neck. The soundtrack is unnerving, and the music that you would expect to play in the calmer moments is distorted, just to remind you that things are never safe. Two scenes in particular start with an almost mundane scenario, and soon escalate to something nightmarish (one of them I had to pause the movie for a few minutes).
Now to air out a few of the bad things, but these are almost petty. The child actors are...well, child actors. They're not amazing. But for what they have to do, they do it well enough. Much of the film also has a green hue to it, but I suspect this was because it came out no long after the Matrix, and being green was the thing. Viewers may also find parts of it quite confusing. I saw Ringu and read the book before seeing this, so I knew the plot fairly well, but I can understand anyone's confusion.
The Ring is a fantastic film, combining elements of a classic mystery and psychological horror. You'll be on the edge of your seat throughout/ The Ring eclipses Ringue in my opinion, though I know many who might disagree. Ringu worked really well for a book. But The Ring works even better as a movie. If you like a good mystery, some unknown terror, or just watching a good movie, The Ring is one of my highest recommendations.