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The Ring Back in August, Fear Dot Com was released. If you have good taste, you probably missed it. In the movie, people died three days after viewing a web site. In The Ring, people die a week after seeing a videotape (I guess the internet is more efficient). And that's not all they have in common because they both stink. Naomi Watts stars as Rachel - a Seattle newspaper reporter whose niece has mysteriously died. Her sister asks her to find out why, and she soon learns that several of her niece's friends have also coincidentally died after watching the same videotape. Rachel watches it to find clues, but it turns out that she will die within 7 days if she doesn't solve the mystery. Can she do it? Is she a goner? The Ring is a failure. Director Gore Verbinski fails to establish an eerie, scary tone, and that's bad for a horror film. The scariest part for me was when, before the movie, a mouse ran up the wall next to my seat (yikes!). Other than that shocker, The Ring is flat, uninteresting and lacks the kind of mystery that we want out of a film like this. It starts nowhere, fails to build to a crescendo, never gets very detailed, and has a stupid ending. I was left wanting more complexity and something I could sink my teeth into. What I was left with was a film that isn't much of an intellectual challenge and doesn't deliver the goods. It's not even visually scary. I only enjoyed Naomi Watts's performance. She is great with little material, but most of her best acting lacks the kind of emotional punch needed because Verbinski doesn't give it any context. She is delivering a Grade A performance for a Grade D film. Everyone else is going through the motions, except young David Dorfman who delivers an interesting, spooky performance as Rachel's son Aidan. Writer Ehren Kruger should have been forced to produce a better script to live up to their abilities. The Ring is a loser. Grade: D Copyright 2002 - WaffleMovies.com
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