The Ring: Movie Review, DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

Directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ehren Kruger, based on the novel by Koji Suzuki, 115 minutes, rated PG-13.

Gore Verbinski's "The Ring" asks audiences to imagine a video tape whose contents are so terrifying, viewing the footage will kill you within seven days of watching it.

Ring a bell?

It might. "The Ring" is based on Hideo Nakata's hugely popular 1998 Japanese film, "Ringu," which follows the same premise--death by video within seven days--and which has since generated a sequel, a prequel, a comic book, a television series and a Korean remake by Dong-bin Kim entitled "Ring Virus."

Initially, Verbinski's remake is engaging and fun, but by the time the last reel has unraveled, so has the film, whose endless puzzles keep accumulating until the ideas that once fueled them have turned on themselves.

In the movie, Naomi Watts is Rachel Keller, a Seattle-based newspaper reporter whose niece and three friends die after viewing a disturbing video tape, which Rachel finds (too easily) at a lodge in the Washington woods (don't ask) and watches herself.

The video tape, a surrealist's dream, is a scratchy, black-and-white nightmare of freaked-out horses, creeping centipedes and ladders that climb to nowhere. After receiving a telephone call from a stranger telling her she has a week to live, Rachel is off and sleuthing, employing her former boyfriend (Martin Henderson) to help her solve the mounting mystery.

What ensues has its moments, but not enough to give the film a sustained series of jolts. Worse, the movie doesn’t adequately explain the video tape and its contents, which unhinges it.

Watts has screen presence to spare, but for a woman whose death is imminent, she plays the part awfully coolly. So does David Dorfman as Rachel's psychic son, Aidan, an anemic six-year-old boy who comes off like the life-size, windup version of Haley Joel Osment. Unfortunately, his vivid drawings of dark rings and dead people are never as effective as the fierce scribblings that brought superior horror movies like "The Changeling" to life.

Grade: C

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