The Flipcritic

THE RING TWO, for all intents and purposes, is one big bummer. It looks like a thriller, walks like a thriller, talks like a thriller, but scares like a turkey. Though THE RING and its progenitor RINGU never really frightened me, both of them had their moments of approval. Despite its drawn-out tempo, and lack of editing, I admired RINGU’s askew ambiance in the midst of Japan’s orderliness, along with the originality of its wraith and her fatal means. I loved the cold clinical feel of Gore Verbinski’s version, and its terse pacing and skill, regardless if I had seen it before. But this latest incarnation is meandering, rootless, baffling, and worst of all, surprisingly mild. Time for its actors to collect their paychecks I guess.

The movie has two central figures, but no plot. We merely follow Rachel (Naomi Watts) and Aidan Keller (David Dorfman) as they careen from grave omen to grave omen and from fatality to fatality until Samara (Daveigh Chase) reemerges fully. A plotless story could still work if it concentrated on character development, but the movie requires none, which results in one predictable scene after another. Do we think Samara is in the living room? Will something come out of the faucet? Is an unnecessary character killed off? Will she make it to the top of the well? Are the answers to these questions redundant?

It also becomes problematic once the movie decides to disregard the rules that have made its specter so original to begin with: Play tape, watch screen, and a TV-dwelling ghoul face-warps you to death. Simple! But after Rachel (finally) decides to do to the tape, what should have been done an episode ago, a major rule is broken, which you’ll have to see for yourself. If the movie has no rules for its horror to play by, how can we root for its characters, since its evil can arbitrarily defy anything done against it? Where’s the fun in that?

This inexplicable lack of convention makes each supposed creepy scene seem ridiculous, such as a bathroom sequence that seriously overestimates the effect of water falling upwards. The films most maddening moment comes in a drive through the forest. Some of my fellow audience members were amazed, but for the life of me, why did what happen, happen? I’ll be looking forward to those emails (be kind).

The movie does have one treat though, and it’s seeing Sissy Spacek again. Of course, her appearance is the equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenneger’s in THE RUNDOWN. Just as he passed his comedic-action mantle to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ms. Spacek passes her most-hellish-girl-on-earth title (CARRIE) onto Samara, though the recipient is hardly be worthy of it. Hollywood seems to see eye to eye with the Japanese horror films when it comes to using cute youngsters with sinister looks. There used to be a time when such a sight truly was unsettling. These days they’re a dime a dozen, and I’ve seen too much loose change.

Listen, if you want to frighten people with fearsome situations, give it to them! Instead of half-heartedly scattering predictable setups all about. Give us something like THE EXORCIST, which forces us to deal, as real as it can conjure up, with the repercussions of an actual possession. Present tangibly gruesome creatures like those in THE THING or ALIEN. Suspenseful arrangements, haunted houses, and scary looking children can only do so much. If you want to horrify someone, you need real horror.

The only thing scary about THE RING TWO is the size of David Dorfman’s head. I swear that I could almost hear Mike Myers screaming, “Head! Move!” But seriously, if you’re looking for a good scare this week, you can’t do much worse than THE RING TWO (there is of course ALONE IN THE DARK). The best its series has to offer is found in the Japanese original, which isn’t saying much. I can hear Naomi Watts in front of the cash register now (“Ka-ching!”).

Posted by FLIPCRITIC at April 14, 2005 03:45 PM