director
Gore Verbinski
screenwriter
Ehren Kruger
based on
a screenplay by
Hiroshi Takahashi
and on
the novel Ringu by
Kôji Suzuki
producers
Laurie MacDonald
Walter F. Parkes
cinematographer
Bojan Bazelli
music
Hans Zimmer
editor
Craig Wood
cast
Naomi Watts (Rachel Keller)
Martin Henderson (Noah)
David Dorfman (Aidan Keller)
Brian Cox (Richard Morgan)
Jane Alexander (Dr. Grasnik)
Lindsay Frost (Ruth)
Amber Tamblyn (Katie)
Rachael Bella (Becca)
Daveigh Chase (Samara Morgan)
Shannon Cochran (Anna Morgan)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 115m
u.s.
release: 10/18/02
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other gore
verbinski films
reviewed on this website:
- the
mexican
- pirates
of the caribbean: the curse of the black pearl
see also:
- ringu
(1998)
- the
ring two
|
The Ring -- that is, the one now playing at
a theater near you -- is at least the second remake of
the 1998 Japanese big hit Ringu
(how big a hit? Let's say Ringu was in Japan what
The
Blair Witch Project was here). Korea remade it first,
three years ago, as The Ring Virus, and Ringu itself
has been sequelized and prequelized (it was also a remake
itself -- the story was done for Japanese TV in 1995). Now along
comes Hollywood, ever late to the party, to weigh in with its
own take on the material, which cries out for a master of illusion/delusion
like Brian De Palma. I mean, here's a story about a killer
videotape -- you watch it, then die seven days later -- and
you can't help wondering what De Palma would've done with it
(turn it into a dark comedy, most likely). Instead, we get Gore
Verbinski, the master of horror who gave you MouseHunt
and The
Mexican.
Verbinski -- who also did clean-up
work on last year's Time Machine remake when its director
faltered -- has proven himself, if not a Howard Hawks jack of
all genres, at least a competent hack who'll take any script
Hollywood kicks his way. The script here, adapted by Ehren Krueger
(fast squandering the early promise he showed with Arlington
Road), could've used more kicking; it adds nothing in
particular to the material that terrified Japan. Tackling his
first horror film, Verbinski is irrepressibly of the flash-cut-booga-booga
school: show something weird for a split-second while
the soundtrack goes "EEEEEK" (in anticipation of the
eek in the audience, no doubt). Some of it does the job
-- i.e., works on the level of dumb motor scares -- but the content
of the deadly videotape, which is supposed to freak us out beyond
all sense, inspires one cynic in the film, and at least one in
the audience, to snicker "That's very student-film."
This Ring has something
the others didn't, though: Naomi Watts as Rachel Keller, the
reporter trying to get to the bottom of the video mystery. Her
teenage niece (Amber Tamblyn), along with three friends, watched
the tape and died a week later; Rachel watches it and somehow
doesn't laugh (honestly, it reminded me of nothing so much as
Illeana Douglas' pretentious short film "Mirror, Father,
Mirror" in Ghost
World; the tape in the Japanese version was quieter,
subtler, and spookier). Realizing she's on a deadline, Rachel
and her ex-husband (Martin Henderson) get to work on the video
and the various secrets it may or may not disclose. They'd better
hurry, because their young son (David Dorfman) has also watched
the tape.
I first noticed Watts in the
much-maligned (why? it's fun enough) Tank Girl, where,
as the bashful Jet Girl, she instinctively covered her mouth
when she smiled until Lori Petty told her there was no need to
hide such a pretty smile. I could've told her that, but we didn't
see much more of Watts until her acting marathon in Mulholland
Drive; now she graces a Hollywood remake marketed
to pull in teenagers looking for the next Blair Witch,
and she's much the best reason to see it. (Well, that and an
impressive scene involving a horse gone berserk.) Even in this
overproduced claptrap, Watts gives solid evidence of a bright
future in engagingly flawed women; I most enjoyed her smaller
moments, like the way she shoos her editor away when she's on
the phone, or when she snatches a teenage girl's cigarette --
not out of motherly disapproval, but to light her own.
The Ring, in any version, is locked into its
portfolio of scares and revelations (though what Verbinski does
with the bodies of the tape's victims is inspired, and rhymes
with the device of the victims' distorted pre-death photographs
better than in the original). Hideo Nakata's film was unabashedly
old-school, and it benefited from its measured, meat-and-potatoes
style; it only got weird when it was playing for keeps. This
Ring keeps strobing us with weirdness -- deathly afraid
the young audience will fall asleep, maybe -- and so its climax,
in which the animating spirit of the video reveals itself, comes
off as just another eek! Instead of insinuating its way
into your night thoughts, the way the original does, the remake
simply tries too hard to be terrifying. Horror audiences are
a tough room; you don't get points for trying.
|