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The Ring
(Reviewed October 5, 2002)
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What a dumb waste of time, and what a criminal waste of an excellent actress (Naomi Watts, who should have snagged an Oscar for her outstanding work in "Mulholland Drive" last year). And what's with director Gore Verbinski? His first movie ("Mouse Hunt") was great, his second ("The Mexican") was embarrassingly lame, and now comes this dollar-rental dud. Sad, sad, sad.
"The Ring" is one of those dunderheaded horror movies where characters flit from place to place following no believable logic whatsoever ("I'll go to the lighthouse that I had the incredible luck to identify by paging through books in the library!" "I'll break into the records at the insane asylum!" "Dang, it sure is fortunate that this interrogation videotape happened to be in the VCR when I walked in this guy's living room!") Yeesh!
Even worse, the central gimmick of the movie--that watching a creepy videotape marks viewers for death in seven days--is totally subverted by the fact that the video in question is about as scary as an installment of "Sprockets." Let's put it this way: When shown the video, one of the wholly unimpressed characters mentions that it looks like a film-school project. Right on, brother--and the student would have flunked! (Perhaps the producers should have considered getting David Lynch to direct that film-within-a-film to amp up the "disturbing" quotient...naah, even that wouldn't have saved things.)
There were only two things I liked about "The Ring": A horse that goes nutso on a ferry is pretty unsettling. And when the ridiculous plot contrives to get Naomi Watts soaking wet for a wholly gratuitous "look at my nipples" scene, the movie managed to hold my undivided attention for a few fleeting seconds.
Otherwise: Ho-hum dumb.
Back Row Grade: F
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