Meh! Meh...

Rating: 4/10 (19 March 2007)

Remember when everyone was talking about this? Remember when it was, like, the scariest movie ever, and stuff? Man, am I glad that fad has passed.
This decent but incomplete adaptation is also a decent and incomplete companion piece to the original Ringu. I consider a fan of Asian cinema, but Ringu was also a decent and incomplete film unto itself. That's pretty much the way to describe this entire series.
Why does the ghost decide to inhabit the curse in a videotape (of all things, especially considering that this remake comes in the DVD era)? The answer can only be assumed. How does the tape come to exist? Well apparently it was first recorded by those teenagers up in the mountains, but then again, how did that urban legend then spread if it the teenager who dies in the beginning was one of the first and only ones to see it? But more importantly than plot holes... why do people think this movie is scary again? An answer shall never rise from the well.
Anyway, as a production its pretty decent. Naomi Watts is as good as any movie she's in, which means she does pretty well but not spectacular here. Gore Verbinski is, I feel, a really good director, he just is caught in Hollywood doing stuff like this. Everyone gives their due and the movie itself goes along pretty well (in fact, I give it entertainment points for being funny, as the horse falling into the water scene is spectacular comedy). It's just that nothing in the proceedings really sticks or matters. It's a horror show that toned itself down enough to be handled by 13 year olds, which means it's pretty much refused the right to do anything really interesting at all.
And if trippy videos scare people, why isn't avant-garde cinema taking off? Hey, Ring-fans: the works of Stan Brakhage, man. That stuff can kill you.
--PolarisDiB