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The film is the latest off-shoot of Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel “Ringu”, in which the brilliantly metaphoric notion of a cursed videotape that had the power to kill anyone who watched it after seven days was first explored. The book was a smash hit in its native Japan and inspired a 1995 television mini-series, two TV sequels and a radio adaptation before it was brought to the big screen in 1998 by director Hideo Nakata. That film also became a smash and inspired an avalanche of sequels, prequels, remakes and rip-offs. Appropriately, considering the subject matter, Nakata’s film also became a cult hit in America when bootleg videos hit the underground circuit. Eventually, an American remake, with several derivations from the original, was produced and while not a particularly strong film–unlike the Japanese version, which refused to connect all the dots in order to more fully unsettle viewers, it went to absurd lengths to explain everything in minute detail–it struck a chord here as well and became a massive hit, mostly due to an effective ad campaign, a PG-13 rating that allowed kids in and, most importantly, that incredibly catchy premise of a killer video.

Picking up relatively quickly after the events of the first film, “The Ring 2", which has been directed by Nakata himself (which is unconnected to the “Ringu 2" that he directed in Japan, which was actually the second sequel to the original film) finds the two survivors, Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) and son Aidan (David Dorfman) as they leave Seattle to begin a new life in a small Oregon town. The reason for this is so they can hopefully avoid exposing themselves to the vengeful ghost of Samara (Daveigh Chase), the monstrous little girl whose wrath caused all the trouble in the previous film. Of course, if a demonic spirit is able to wreak havoc from beyond the grave by imprinting its evil on videotape and killing anyone who stumbles across it in a desperate act of revenge, it is pretty doubtful that crossing the state line is going to keep her at bay. Sure enough, the peaceful burg whose only previously-known terror used to be its proximity to Gus Van Sant now finds copies of the tape appearing in its local flea markets. This time, however, Samara isn’t really interested in zapping people that way, save for a dopey teener who gets his in the prologue; instead, she wants to fully cross over into the real world and plans on possessing Aidan and destroying anyone who gets in her way.

The idea of essentially skipping the cursed video angle this time around was a smart move–it is an idea that has been played out, ripped off and spoofed so many time in the last couple of years that any power that it might have once had has long since dissipated. That said, the opening scene of the film, not to mention the “Rings” short film that has been packaged with the recent DVD reissue of the first film, does suggest a potentially intriguing manner of expanding on that notion. However, Nakata and writer Ehren Kruger ignore that possible angle and instead have chosen to trot out a demonic possession plotline that is just as hackneyed. When they aren’t spinning those wheels, they are simply content to recycle elements that worked the first time around, such as another vision that seems inspired by a particularly lackluster underground short, a strange bit of animal-related violence and even a visit to someone from Samara’s past, this time her actual birth mother (Sissy Spacek in a po-mo cameo/”Carrie” homage), who gets to inform Rachel just how monstrous the kid truly is. Some of these retreads are well done, I suppose (Spacek is quite good under the circumstances), but they are nothing more than retreads.

I wasn’t a fan of “The Ring” but I will admit that it did have a few moments that genuinely worked but “The Ring 2" is basically a bore that tries to continue a story that had no compelling reason to be continued aside from filling the coffers at Dreamworks. While Nakata comes up with the occasional arresting image, his work here demonstrates the same kind of logy pacing that even devoted fans will grudgingly admit plagued the original. The film never generates any real fear or suspense or tension–you know, the very elements that tend to be necessary ingredients in a horror film. And while Naomi Watts is one of my favorite actresses working today, her performance her is one that screams out “Contractual Obligation!” more than anything else; at the climax, when she prepares to make her ultimate sacrifice, it feels less like her triumph over the forces of darkness or more like relief that if it works, she won’t have to appear in “The Ring 3".

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11679&reviewer=389
originally posted: 03/18/05 22:44:12
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