Hollywood however, would bring in director Hideo Nakata to direct it's big budget sequel. A move I thought interesting because it was his movie back in Japan entitled RINGU that Gore Verbinski made into the American THE RING. I've watched both version. Ringu and The Ring. And they are both well made if not scary. If I had to choose however, I'd probably pick The Ring over Ringu simply because the style of directing was like a billion times more clever than Ringu. With Hideo Nakata on board, I thought Ring Two might have a fighting chance of making me enjoy the film once more.
The Ring Two suffers greatly. It's a sinking ship from beginning to end. Like someone pulled to rug right out from under it and laughed while it crashed to the ground in a heap. Any originality behind it's conception be it American of Japanese has been sucked dry by obvious studio influence. The beginning opens like any other teeny-bop scary movie like Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer with someone dying in a horrible fashion. And from there it just steam rolls ahead without an ounce of creative thought behind it, but rather the sound of cash registers.
Which totally kicks my ass! When the teaser trailer came out for this thing, it had Sissy Spaceck sitting in a corner of an insane assylum cutting bits of newspaper with safety scissors. Then the scene darkens to a small television and the horrible face of Samara flashed before me and thusly loosens my bowels into my pants. Huge expectations for this film would be putting it lightly. My expectations for it were so high they could see my house from there. The director was from the grand daddy original version, Sissy Spaceck, CARRIE!!!! for crying out loud was going to be in it, Namoi Watts was returning, and an obvious scare factor of 7 or higher was already in place. The formula was set for it to be a great movie. But somewhere along the line, someone didn't carry a 1 and the whole thing burst at the seams.
The ground work of the myth set down carefully by the first movie was completley ignored. There was no evolution of the story, and nothing grew more from what we already knew. It was in fact a true sequel as it did not take was told to us before and build with it, but rather give us more of the same. In an effort to stop the returned Samara from completley possesing her son, Naomi Watt's character Rachel returns to the island that was the ground base of the first movie. Returning to all the haunts she's visited before. Doing the same snooping she's already done before. But now there's a heavy, heavy, influence for this movie to scare kids 16 and under every ten minutes, and thus the story is half assed and dull.
There is a time when the movie actually could have been great. Charging ahead, it promised to actually delv into the back story of Samara. Was she really born to the Morgan's, or did they adopt? Did they really travel to lands far away to consume dark potions in order to have a child? What the fuck is Samara exactly? The big reveal is nothing short of goddamn dull. She's not really anything. Just a child the Morgan's adopted from some crazy lady who tried to kill her. THAT'S IT! All the crazy stuff from the first film is now torn assunder. Remember when Brian Cox was going to kill himself in the bath tub and he's screaming at Rachel, "MY WIFE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CHILD!!" What the hell does that mean? Well, if it were up to Hideo Nakata, it means nothing and he's going to make his new movie his way.
As far as directing goes, Hideo Nakata is pretty boring and uninspired. Which completly shocked me because I thought Ringu was nothing BUT inspired. The movie has lost all the flare that made the first one stand out. There is no artistic camera shots. They are all pretty static and safe. There is nothing brilliant about this movie. Which makes me wonder if this is truly all Hideo's fault, or if he was just influenced greatly by the producer's at Dreamworks to do the movie their way.
I tend to prefer the latter because there is no way a smart director like Hideo could account for some of the most flat out retarded points of the movie. Like when Rachel's son Aiden is in the hospital because he's abnormally cold but still walking around. Displayed behind him on a monitor, in big bold white letters for all to see is his temperature which reads 90.3. Dead to you and me. A doctor, a DOCTOR for Christ's sake walks in and feels his hand. To which she exclaims in great shock, "You're freezing." NO FUCKING SHIT LADY!! HIS CORE TEMPERATURE IS 90.3!!!
But bas bad as this movie is, it was a million times worse due to the audience. Oh My God! Why can't teenagers keep their goddamn mouths shut. I was 16 a few years back and I didn't make one iota of the noise these idiots make. For some reason they think they're their cultures reincarnated spirit of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew, and that everyone in the theatre wants to hear their remarks. Which are gems of comic brilliance I may add. I haven't heard phrases like, "Boooooooooo! Scarrrrrrry!" Since I was 3. But it's still funny for some reason. Thank Heaven that older people than I have less patience than I, and actually get up and go complain. Two minutes later I saw someone with a glow in the dark stick, who I assumed worked there go up to the offending crowd. 10 seconds later you could have heard a pin drop. God Bless you theatre employees. This act however took great presidence in the theatre, and pretty much everyone was up and complaining about all the spattered out groups of 13+ year olds that were attempting to loose a few quips that they thought everyone had paid to hear. Employee's were in and out of that theatre every ten seconds. And every ten seconds, more and more of the movie could be heard. Blissfull silence. Now I could let everyone hear MY jokes!!! Which unfortunatly were not much funnier than, "Booooooooo! Scarrrrrrrry!"
FINAL ANALYSIS!
The Ring. Hated it for lack of scares. Loved it for directorial vision and nice story.
The Ring Two. Hated it for lack of scares, directorail vision, and horrible story.
Through and through this was jsut an obvious ploy to churn a buck. This movie is not engaging, interesting, or entertaining. It's literally two hours of my life I will never see again. Thank God I at least got to spend those two hours beside a friend, so as I did not have to suffer alone. Although I think her tolerance of scary movies is lower than mine as I did see her hid behind her coat once or twice. And I will never let her live down the fact that this turd actually got her adrenaline pumping. At least a little bit.
All in all, as I was leaving I saw that The Pacifier was playing in the theatre beside mine. "Damn," I thought. "I just should have seen that."