The Ring Two

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

The sequel to the remake of the adaptation of The Ring. As far I can tell there have been a Japanese movie, sequel, prequel and tv series (which I haven't seen), a Korean adaptation, an American remake, a bridging viral short film and a sequel. Out of all of them I think I like this one the least. Recent talk of the franchise got me reminiscing. I don't think I've seen this one since it's original release, so I gave it another go. I think I like it even less now. Word is Paramount are working on a third film shot in 3D. I think the franchise has well and truly overstayed it's welcome so they'd need to do something drastic to make it interesting, scary and relevant again.

Hideo Nakata, they guy who made the original Ringu comes to Hollywood to direct the sequel to the American version, which the great Gore Verbinski helmed. The two films, though hugely similar in plot are actually quite different in other ways. I love Ringu and The Ring equally. They are both fantastic and The Ring is the only film I can think of that managed to scare me in a theatre and stay with me after I left. Ever since then I've been trying to film a film that effect me in that way and none have. It also made me obsessed with all things Ring. The announcement of a sequel was a little surprising but the news that Hideo Nakata was coming over to direct with interesting.

But none of that really mattered. It's well acted and the look and direction is fine I guess. But the script and the story are not. Instead of getting invested in this huge mystery and a life threatening race against the clock we get a possession story. And unlike the first films, pretty much all the scares are cheap jump scares or tired riffs of imagery from the first film and all of them shown in full view with a load of unnecessary CG effects instead of being done practically or more subtle, suggested horrors that work psychologically upon the audience. It just does everything wrong. It's a huge disappointment.

I hope I can show the first American version to friends soon, I want to give it another look. I love that film so much. Don't bother with this one. The best reason to get it out is to see the short film Jonathan Liebesman made that connects the two films. It really great and I found it quite effective. It's scarier than anything in the whole sequel.