Inferior to Ringu on every level - A disgrace to the original

Rating: 4/10 (2 March 2005)

I am amazed that nobody has posted a thread saying one bad word against this film. If you want to appreciate the remake of a film, see the original first. As with music, if you are going to remake or remix something, you must add something to it that gives it a different style but still appeals to people that liked the original. As far as i can see, this remake has failed to do this by a mile, and furthermore, is an insult to the effort of the craft and collaboration between Koji Suzuki and Hideo Nakata that went into making the original a genuinely original and revolutionary horror film.
The plot is so much more unnecessarily complicated than the original. Half of the original plot twists from the original, and even aspects of the narrative, are removed and replaced with totally convoluted and unbelievable ones. What was all this business about the barn that Samara allegedly stayed in? What was all the excess nonsense about the lighthouse? What was all that confusing and unnecessary crap about mother in the papers and hospital records that ultimately leads to nothing? We find out that Samara was killed by her mother. Not only was this contrary to the father performing the act in the original, but also we never know why. Fair enough, you do not know why in the original unless you see Ring 0 but in the original, Dr Ikuma was not given anywhere enough attention for the viewer to actually worry about not knowing. In comparison, the remake focuses a lot on revealing about the past of Samara's mother, but does not give any hint as to why should would have any motive for killing her daughter. This leaves the viewer frustrated and confused. I agree that the unexplained is frightening, but this has to be taken to a lesser degree when concerning the fate of pivotal characters. Clearly, the director has not paid any attention to these problems and this puts a stain on the genius of the original, which found the perfect balance.
The character's were far less believable in this version, and is a further insult to the believability of the original. None of the leads were particularly outstanding. The innocence of Yoichi in the original, with sensible dialogue to convey his emotion and confusion of being wrapped up in the essence of the tape's curse, is replaced in the remake by a bad-mouthed, precocious little brat that contributes nothing to the film either in terms of the constant eerie aura that sweeps through the film that Nakata masterfully conveys, nor the sympathy you extend to Yoichi, again through the lack of believable dialogue, which makes him sound like a spoilt little runt, rather than an innocent caught up in the curse. Because of this, the very child's presence in this remake irritated me and I had no concern for his feelings in the film, what little there were of them (which were unconvincingly portrayed anyhow), which ultimately further lacks the constant mix of horror and anxiety that every character in Ring represents to the viewer. Yet again, such flaws are insult to the sure-handiness of the original.
There are characters that are introduced, turns in the plot, and objects, which are left unresolved. For example, the friend of the first victim from the beginning of the film does not appear in the original. We are given the feeling of her importance to the film and yet by the end we do not know of, nor care, for her fate. It gives the impression that her role in the film was merely a red herring device to confuse the audience, as if by two thirds of the way through we are not confused enough already. You are left asking the question 'Why?' with a sense of immense frustration rather than anxious pleasure.
Finally, we are plagued with CGI to convey horror. A big reason that Hideo Nakata's original was so appealing was that it was simplistic in its conveyance of terror, and therefore terrifyingly effective. I am referring to Ringu's ending, whereby we are greeted with the chilling realisation of Sadako's wrath. In the original, this scene was so successful because a real human being crawled from the TV set, thereby conveying the horror of the most unbelievable thing in most realistic way possible. You can't help but feel cheated when CGI is used. This is a clear case of where the more advanced most certainly does not equate to the most effective. The director has gone so far in making Samara unreal, that there is no physically real aspect to her at all  instead, she is some kind of digital ghost without any real presence. Adding flickers to the edge of her character as if a flickering TV screen unfortunately clearly shows where the film's priorities lie. As such, I felt little fear in comparison to the total body muscular tension I experienced in the scene from the original Ringu.
Overall, this film has failed on every level compared to Ringu. Rather than honouring Ringu's history with a modern horror in the spirit of Japanese film making while adding more, it has instead tarnished it with unnecessary, unbelievable, and incomplete plot twists and characters that typically reflect the abuse of a comparatively massive Hollywood budget.
It is sad that the genius of the original will always be associated with this. I can only hope that Japanese cinema gets the credit it deserves so that more people will be more likely and more inclined to see the original foreign version of a film first. Until then, when the word Ring appears in film-talk, this inferior remake will be the first that comes to mind and the brilliance of the superior original will be overlooked. A shame. A real shame.