ho hum thriller

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2004)

Like so many horror films of recent vintage, `The Ring' is far more effective in its setup than it is in its execution.
The film starts off with a promising premise. A group of teenagers watch a mysterious videotape that predicts that each of them will die in seven days. When the prophecy turns out to be true, Rachel, the aunt of one of the victims, decides to do some investigating of her own to uncover the facts behind this strange supernatural phenomenon. The problem is that not only has Rachel herself seen the tape (which looks for all the world like outtakes from `Un Chien Andalou'), but so also have her ex-boyfriend and little son. Her search for answers thus becomes a matter of life-and-death not merely for herself but for her loved ones as well.
`The Ring' has some nice moments of suspense right up front, but the more Rachel unravels the mystery the less mysterious and terrifying the film becomes. This seems to be a common failing in many horror films and `The Ring' finds no real way to overcome it. Naomi Watts is energetic and attractive as the feisty heroine of the story, but the clues she uncovers just aren't very interesting or compelling. `The Ring' is competently made and nicely atmospheric at times, but it doesn't get under your skin the way the best horror films invariably do. Perhaps it's because the tape itself ceases to become a threat early on once the three main characters have all had a crack at watching it. All we are left to do is watch Rachel racing against the clock looking for answers, turning `The Ring' into more of a whodunit mystery than a tale of terror. This might be acceptable if the `solution' weren't a hackneyed bit of Grand Guignol idiocy that we've seen hundreds of times before.
`The Ring' is a watchable little time waster but it won't keep you up at night and it won't make you think twice before popping that next videotape into your VCR.