"Life sucks when you can't sleep." "Yeah, tell me about it." "Sometimes it helps to talk about it." Story of the videotape that kills you, communicated from slick jawed 'cute' guy to meticulous, concerned girl. And this new chapter of 'The Ring' cycle begins.
1998's Japanese original 'The Ring' was a fine film, and despite Naomi Watts' attempts, so was the 2002 remake. And yet the story was always pretty thin. This needn't matter if there is enough imagination floating around the production team to create an atmosphere of unease, characters you care about and exciting situations. Guess what? 'Rings' has none of these things. Of course, it brings back the old routine with some good effects – oily black water, upwards rain, the child-voice whispering '7 days,' and yet these brief moments exist in isolation.
Self-assembly teens with choreographed intensity and catwalk emotion, dull as can be, pretty as paint. Can you act? Hell no, but if I smother my face in make-up and raise the occasional eyebrow, no-one will care. What about the dialogue? Shall we have any jokes, any natural discourse, any emotion? Nah, just spout some perfunctory slang, and add a bit of sexless titillation. We're so pretty, we don't need anything else. It's galling to read reviews that proclaim a certain film as the worst ever made. This isn't the worst film ever made. But it's the worst I've seen for a very long time. It's competently put together, had a few million dollars thrown at it, and a soundtrack desperately trying to tell us something of worth is happening. And yet everything that made the original so unsettling has been reduced to diva teen drama, acting strictly confined to the school of daytime soap, the anaemic kind of thing you've seen many times before and will probably see many times again, as long as there is popcorn and boredom.
Even the much maligned 'Ring 2' (both Japanese and Hollywood versions) possessed at least an extension of the sinister spirit of Samara and her tragic evil. Here, whatever she has become is just another standard lurking presence. Her appearance stirs the dullness around it, rather than lifts it.
Usually, there is something of merit in a film. Even if there is perilously little, I still recognise that someone, somewhere, has probably lavished time and thought on the project and that is always worth consideration. I can't imagine anyone involved in this giving two hoots, other than to justify a pay-packet.
There are rumours Ring films could become the 'new' annual Halloween release, like 'Saw' and 'Paranormal Activity' before it. If this Scooby-Doo-without-humour bore is anything to go by, it might well be better to forget it. If only I could forget watching this. Absolutely dreadful.
1998's Japanese original 'The Ring' was a fine film, and despite Naomi Watts' attempts, so was the 2002 remake. And yet the story was always pretty thin. This needn't matter if there is enough imagination floating around the production team to create an atmosphere of unease, characters you care about and exciting situations. Guess what? 'Rings' has none of these things. Of course, it brings back the old routine with some good effects – oily black water, upwards rain, the child-voice whispering '7 days,' and yet these brief moments exist in isolation.
Self-assembly teens with choreographed intensity and catwalk emotion, dull as can be, pretty as paint. Can you act? Hell no, but if I smother my face in make-up and raise the occasional eyebrow, no-one will care. What about the dialogue? Shall we have any jokes, any natural discourse, any emotion? Nah, just spout some perfunctory slang, and add a bit of sexless titillation. We're so pretty, we don't need anything else. It's galling to read reviews that proclaim a certain film as the worst ever made. This isn't the worst film ever made. But it's the worst I've seen for a very long time. It's competently put together, had a few million dollars thrown at it, and a soundtrack desperately trying to tell us something of worth is happening. And yet everything that made the original so unsettling has been reduced to diva teen drama, acting strictly confined to the school of daytime soap, the anaemic kind of thing you've seen many times before and will probably see many times again, as long as there is popcorn and boredom.
Even the much maligned 'Ring 2' (both Japanese and Hollywood versions) possessed at least an extension of the sinister spirit of Samara and her tragic evil. Here, whatever she has become is just another standard lurking presence. Her appearance stirs the dullness around it, rather than lifts it.
Usually, there is something of merit in a film. Even if there is perilously little, I still recognise that someone, somewhere, has probably lavished time and thought on the project and that is always worth consideration. I can't imagine anyone involved in this giving two hoots, other than to justify a pay-packet.
There are rumours Ring films could become the 'new' annual Halloween release, like 'Saw' and 'Paranormal Activity' before it. If this Scooby-Doo-without-humour bore is anything to go by, it might well be better to forget it. If only I could forget watching this. Absolutely dreadful.