Rating: 
Summary: Nice Scenes, Incongruent Plot
Review: The Ring features a couple of scenes that rank up there with some of the scariest of the decade - particularly the television sequence at the end. Unfortunately, the film neither commits to being a psychological horror vehical nor an Evil Bad Guy genre enrty. Either would have worked, as both the material and the settings were top notch. Acting by the principal stars was quite good. Better than most - and probably worth it for several scenes.
Rating: 
Summary: A must-see horror/suspense movie
Review: I saw this movie last night and I have to say this is the best theatrical release horror film I've seen in a LONG time, and one of the best of 2002. I won't give any spoilers since I knew hardly anything about this movie before going to the theatre, but I will say it'll somewhat remind you of SIXTH SENSE, but much better. In the beginning, don't be disappointed as it seems like it's going to be a boring horror film, but it gets MUCH better in no time. My attention was caught and I didn't leave the theatre for nothing as I wanted to catch every minute of it. Definitely a movie I will be sure to purchase once it arrives on DVD. If you're looking for movies in the SCREAM and I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER category, you might not wanna bother (but I still say give it a chance). If you like horror films that are somewhat like putting together a puzzle, then I say go see THE RING. You won't be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: Did This FIlm Totally Miss The Editing Room?
Review: First let me start out by saying that I am a true movie fan. Especially when it comes to GRADE A horror films. Too bad I haven't had the pleasure in a long time. I had high hope for this film, not only from it's opening gross at the box office, but from the many reviews I read prior to seeing this film. I can't totally dog this movie however. I was really getting into it UNTIL the barn scene. Was this movie rushed to make the release date? During the Barn sequence my friend and I notice the BOOM MIC that was ok. It was kind of funny, it happens. Not a minute later we see it again, and again, and again, YOU GET THE PICTURE! At one point we not only saw the MIC but the entire pole it was on. The only thing missing saw the guy holding the pole. By this point we felt as if we were watching a behind the scenes documentary about the film or that at any second it would turn out to be a movie within a movie. We finally lost count around a dozen times. This happened at such a critical part in the film. We both found it very hard to get back into the story. As the film ended we both found ourselves asking alot of questions that neither of us could answer. Questions that should have been explained in the last 5-10 minutes of the film. In closing, if you go to this movie be sure to wear blinders.
Rating:
Summary: Best Scary Movie in Years
Review: This is the best scary movie I've seen in 20 years. I was still a little confused at the end, but this was one edge-of-your-seat creepy show. And it was intelligent too...It has very little swearing and no sex or gratuitous gore...
Rating: 
Summary: Well Done, Even If Not Very Original
Review: Gore Verbinski ("The Mexican") returns to the director's chair at the helm of 2002's best addition to the Halloween-time horror film rush, "The Ring," a remake of the Japanese film "Ringo." Naomi Watts ("Mulholland Drive") leads a decent cast that includes mostly relative unknowns, except for Brian Cox in what amounts to an extended cameo. The MacGuffin is almost laughable, but Verbinski manages to make it work, and work well. A moody, effective, if uninspired film, "The Ring" has chills where it counts, but manages to avoid entering the canon of must-see horror.The movie opens with a typical urban-legend-style storytelling sequence where two young girls discuss a mysterious videotape that supposedly kills whomever watches it seven days later. Investigative reporter Rachel Keller (Watts) is then drawn to investigate the tape, and after watching it in a remote cabin outside of Seattle, she receives a chilling phone call from a young girl that informs her that she will indeed die in seven days. At first she doesn't believe it, but a string of other deaths and ghostly encounters lead her to investigate further, especially as her friends and loved ones watch the video and inadvertently lead themselves on the same long (short?) walk. The film's strongest point byfar is the mood it creates. Slightly skewed camera angles and tight editing add to a feeling of general dread and impending doom, and the minimal lighting and some creepy effects (I'll never look at a TV quite the same way again) keep the steam running. It's a shame that the film didn't capitalize more on the claustrophobic feelings towards the end of the film, because they built it very well in the second part but couldn't maintain the atmosphere until the end. Where "The Ring" fails is in its failure to break out of too many genre clichés. "Session 9" managed to create a wholly original horror film not two years ago, and "The Ring" had the potential to do so, but instead seemed to mingle together several sources for inspiration. Granted, films like "The Changeling" and "The Omen" aren't bad movies to rip off, but for those familiar with the genre, you can't help but sit there and think "I've seen this before," which kind of ruins the mood. "The Ring" is worth seeing on the big screen, or a rental when it comes to DVD, but I doubt I'd watch it more than a couple of times.
Rating:
Summary: Fire Walk with Rachel
Review: "The Ring" begins unpromisingly with two teenage girls, alone in a big house telling scary stories, and you sense that you might be in for another variation of the "Scream"-type of mock-scary movie. Well... you would be completely wrong for "The Ring" is an uncompromisingly strange and spooky, in a "Fire Walk with Me," David Lynch-like, flat out terrifying way.
News reporter, Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is asked by her sister to investigate the sudden and bizarre death of her daughter (and Rachel's niece), Katie. This leads Rachel to a videocassette, which reveals a host of weird and unexplainable images that has seemingly and directly caused the death of her niece and her niece's three friends seven days after viewing. Rachel sets out to find out the who, what and where of said videocassette especially since she has brazenly viewed the video herself.
Rachel Keller is written as a tough, detail oriented, consummate professional with a reputation for getting to the heart of a crime story without allowing her emotions to get in the way. But, as with many of us in the audience, the unsettling images on the video and the grotesque manner in which her niece is killed shake Rachel to her non-believing core. Naomi Watts plays Rachel in a tight-fisted, bottled-up manner. That is until the facts of the case prove to be too much for her to bare and she lets go and literally howls in pain: a finely detailed and outrageous performance.
The director of "The Ring," Gore Verbinski and his screenwriter (based on a Japanese film) have set up this film very much like a murder mystery...say like "D.O.A," in which Edmund O'Brien searches for the people who poisoned him and left him to die. O'Brien enters a police station at the beginning of that film and states, "I want to report a Murder." The police sergeant replies, "Whose?" O'Brien replies, "Mine." "The Ring" has that same blunt, hatchet-on-the-head quality, as do all good murder mysteries.
The details of Rachel's detective work are interesting and unusual in the extreme. But do not expect all your questions to be answered, though. The deeper and broader that Rachel goes the more labyrinthine and para-normal the situation becomes.
In essence then, "The Ring" is a murder mystery whose mysteries do not get tied-up neatly at the conclusion. In fact if anything, the ending or denouement brings up a whole slew of new and interesting questions. This is one of a handful of films this year that delivers much more than we expect and surprises and exasperates us at every turn.
Rating:
Summary: After you read this review, You have Seven days to Live!
Review: I went to see The Ring by word of mouth of a friend. The only thing I knew about it was that it was about people dying 7 days after watching movie, which sounds like a pretty bad idea for a movie concept. Well, I was wrong. The Ring is one of the greatest horror movies I have ever seen! The main story shown in the picture is that if you watch a video, seven days later you die. When this happens to the main characters niece, she decides to discover what is behind the video and how it originated. Since she views it, she only has 7 days to find the answer. The Ring is filled with major suspense and an amazing story. I would recommend that you should go and see this movie before you have to wait a few months before it comes out on video.
Rating:
Summary: A stylish and genuinely scary horror film
Review: "The Ring," directed by Gore Verbinski, gets off to a solid start as two characters discuss a truly intriguing phenomenon: a videotape which, if you see it, will somehow bring about your death seven days later. It's a premise that sounds like a classic urban legend. Naomi Watts stars as Rachel, a single mother who investigates a death seemingly linked to this cursed videocassette. The film is a mystery that tantalizingly unfolds as Rachel goes on her bizarre and frightening odyssey. "The Ring" is a really creepy film that is shot with visual flair. The filmmakers succeed in creating an oppressive, unsettling atmosphere. Watts is a solid heroine, and the supporting cast is also fine. I was especially impressed by young David Dorfman as Rachel's son; his is one of the most disturbing child performances I've ever seen. In the end, I don't think that "The Ring" fully lives up to its fascinating premise and solid opening sequences. But still, it's a solid film that combines cinematic artistry with palpable menace; it also examines such issues as longing, fear, paranormal phenomena, and the existence of evil. "The Ring" is a jigsaw puzzle of a movie that I look forward to viewing a second time.
Rating:
Summary: Seeing (the Ring) is believing...or something like that
Review: Gore Verbinski's remake of the Japanese film RINGU, which was based on a series of novels by an author now known as the "Japanese Stephen King", is truly a chilling film. I had seen the previews and thought the film looked very creepy. Seeing it does more than justice to the previews. I know many moviegoers might disagree with me on this opinion but here goes anyway. I haven't seen a film so disturbing and involving since The Blair Witch Project. I'm not saying the films are similiar in storyline or context. However, I saw BWP in its original theatrical release in an old Denver moviehouse, and it scared the you-know-what out of me. The most effective element of both Blair Witch and The Ring is the use of suspense and subliminal suggestion. Throughout The Ring there are split-second flashes of imagery from the "tape" that kills the viewer 7 days after they have watched it. You will see the "tape" several times througout the film, in its entirety and in excerpts. I'm not going to give away the visual elements seen in the "tape", suffice to say it really is disturbing, because what is seen plays on your mind long after you've seen the film. Not only is the film visually disturbing and very effective in its use of photographic effects, the music used within the "tape" is really intense and gave me chills again and again while watching the film. The actors' performances are amazing and excellent, particularly from Mulholland Drive alumnus Naomi Watts who once again delivers a (pardon the pun) haunting and deeply effective performance as Rachel Keller, the investigative reporter researching the legend of the "killer videotape" which killed her niece. Also intense and quite skilled as a young actor is David Dorfman, who plays Rachel's son. His performance could be compared to Haley Joel Osment's in The Sixth Sense, but with a difference nonetheless. The young Mr. Dorfman will no doubt be doing many character roles in future films. All in all The Ring is a film that will not only disturb your sense of reality, but also your sense of what a "horror" film is today. It's a welcome relief from a long line of slasher/teenagers-in-distress movies that have crowded the movie screens the past several years. Intelligent and thought-provoking, you should see The Ring before it has left the big screen.
Rating:
Summary: Never trust a monochromatic child...
Review: The Ring is a surprisingly effective and subtle horror film that, through genuine wit and intelligence, stands out amongst the computer-generated messes that seem to pass for so much of Hollywood's current attempts to bring the other worldly to life. It's also a surprisingly dark film with a nicely unexpected little twist at the end that stands in nihilistic contrast to the feel-good, life-affirming style of horror typified by "The Sixth Sense" and the many imitations that have followed. The film sets up its central premise with admirable speed and clarity. Supposedly, there's an urban legend about a mysterious, unmarked video tape that somehow causes the death seven days later of anyone unlucky enough to watch it. One unlucky viewer is the doomed niece of neurotic reporter and single mother Naomi Watts. While investigating her niece's death, Watts has the misfortune to watch the tape herself. Director Gore Verbinski's visualization of what is on that tape has to be counted as one of the film's major triumphs and he is to be commended for not taking the easy route of filling the screen with a bunch of explicit but meaningless "shock" images but instead, creating a creepy collage of surreal but recognizable images. Though in the end, the tape seems more inspired by the Salvador Dali than the Prince of Darkness, it's random images have a disturbing power that get under the viewer's skin with such skill that it creates a feeling of continually growing dread that doesn't become obvious until it's already too late to escape from it. Having watched the tape, Watts soon recieves a phone call informing her that she (and apparently, the film's audience as well) now has precisely seven days left to live. Refreshingly, Watts goes against American horror film convention by neither ignoring the threat or attempting to escape in the stupidest, most illogical way possible. Instead, she immediately sets about to try to figure out just what the tape means and how she can prevent her own seemingly inetivable demise. Aiding her in this endeavor are her ex-boyfriend Noah (Martin Henderson) and her disconcertingly Haley Joel Osmentish son (played by David Dorfman). In her search for an explanation, Watts discovers even greater horrors than what awaits her and it would be wrong to go into any further detail about the plot. Occasionally, the speed and the ease with which Watts discovers the truth behind the tape strains credibility (this is a film where typing in a stranger's name on an internet search engine will automatically get you exactly the result you need) but both Verbinski and Watts manage to craft such a believable thriller, without resorting to cheap histronics, that it's nearly impossible not to surrender your skepticism and go along with the ride, if just to see where it might end up taking you. The film is largely a triumph for director Gore Verbinski, who gives the audience a stylish chiller without ever resorting to cheap shocks. This is the rare Hollywood horror film that actually respects it's audience's intelligence enough not to have it's heroine freaked out by finding a stray cat wandering around the pantry. Instead, Verbinski gets his scares by filming an off-center vision of a world that is still recognizably our own. He takes the patience necessary to create a subtle atmosphere of fear that plays not on our immediate impulses but instead on the usually hidden fears that lurk within us all, the knowledge that at any moment, our life could be on the verge of ending for reasons we'll never know. If Verbinski does succumb, as has every other young director filming his first horror film, to the temptation to add a painfully obvious hommage to the bell tower scene in Vertigo, it still doesn't take away from his truly outstanding achievement with this film. Perhaps Verbinski's greatest accomplishment is that when the film's main horror finally does make itself visible after nearly two hours of dominating the viewer's imagination, it still manages to be as frightening as anything we could have visualized in our mind's eye. Though this film is obviously designed to showcase the skills of its director, one cannot ignore just how much of the film's success comes from Naomi Watts' performance as a very untypical horror heroine. Playing her role with an unstable neurotic streak even before watching the tape, Watts manages to make her character somehow both endearing and frustrating and most importantly, real. In a time when so many horror films tend to present women up as either cute but hormoneless survivors (who survive precisely because they don't have any of those annoying traits that would make them individuals as opposed to ideals) or else as victims born only to be exploited and punished, Watts gives us a recognizable human being who, though understandably terrified, also displays a welcome strength and determination. Watts is one of those rare performers who can come across as both vulnerable and capable at the same time and she brings a welcome conviction to this role, giving the film a needed boost of reality. Though the film is largely a showcase of Watts, mention should also be made of Martin Henderson, playing her ex-boyfriend and sole ally. Though he doesn't have as much to work with in his role as Watts, Henderson brings a lot of natural humor to the film without every detracting from the film's scares. The previously unknown (to me, at least) actor brings such an instant likeability to what could have been a stock role that he adds an extra level of poignancy to the film's unexpected final twist.
|
