Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I’m curious to see what, if anything, had to be shed from the screening of this film I hosted in Pasadena last month in order to get Dreamworks the all-important PG-13 rating. Truthfully, I don’t know that they would have had to cut much. Even the film’s most intense moments didn’t really rely on any sort of graphic imagery. Quick flashes, at best.
Let’s see what today’s batch of readers thought, since what they saw is probably pretty damn close to the release version:
Hey Harry,
I know you'll probably get a few dozen reviews tonight on the screening of The Ring that was held at the AMC Century 14 in Century City but I figured that I would go for broke and send in my two cents. I got tickets to the screening, which was only 2/3 full, from my friend. He asked if I wanted to go and I said 'yes' without hesitation. I've been hearing about it for a while and seeing the trailers, tv spots and reviews and I was pretty excited.
I did not see the original Japanese film, Ringu, so I didn't have any baggage going into this film. I loved Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr. but other than that, I didn't carry anything in with me. That being said, I loved this movie. The beginning is very reminiscant of a teen slasher movie, but plays on the cliches seen in them. After the opening sequence, the movie really hits its stride and never really varies from its form or flow. The pacing is great - not too slow, not too fast. The main characters are pretty one dimensional, but the movie isn't really about who they are, but the situation they are in - so it works. The only problem I had with the characters is with the the boy, Aidan Keller played by David Dorfman. His character just seemed too much like Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense to me. Maybe it was the way David Dorfman played him, or maybe the character was played the same way in Ringu, but since I haven't seen it, I wouldn't know.
The film is a great hybrid of ghost story/supernatural thriller/whodunnit films. The film never goes too far into one of these genres, such as the whodunnit film, without reminding you that it is still a ghost story/supernatural thriller. The hybridization in this film is done flawlessly and works perfectly.
Now for the coolest part of the movie -- the imagry. The visual style of this movie isn't by any means unique but it is very interesting, stylish and creepy. There are images in this film that I know I will be seeing in my head for the next two weeks every time I close my eyes. The lack of color and bluish tint of the film really gives you the sense that this is a cold, water-soaked world they inhabit. The cinematography is good, not excellent, but it is very, very good. The score is now my favorite by Hans Zimmer - truly cool and creepy.
Since The Sixth Sense, Hollywood has felt that every 'creepy' movie needs a twist ending and there will be people complaining that this has the typical 'twist.' There is no real twist though. It is a misdirection - this might not make sense now, but it will when you see it. Just as I was hoping they wouldn't end the movie on the note I thought they were going to, the movie kept going. It threw many of the people watching it in the screening. It just kept going - and not for just a couple of minutes. Very cool.
I saw this film with two of my roommates and a good friend of mine. The second the film ended, we all started talking about how we probably wouldn't be able to sleep tonight seeing as how the movie was so damned creepy. So, I think I'm going to put on The Blair Witch Project and fall asleep in front of my TV - which after seeing this movie, we were all a little afraid to turn on.
Go See This Movie!
StevenMatthews
Wow. Pretty enthusiastic. Let’s see what this next guy had to say:
*This review is completely spoiler-free.*
Like a beautiful, framed photograph marred by an inappropriately long expository plaque underneath, Gore Verbinski's The Ring (a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ringu) is best experienced towel-like. Soak up the stunning, Fincheresque, high contrast, monochromatic images (by cinematographer Bojan Bazelli). Absorb Naomi Watts's uncanny ability to - in much the same fashion as her fellow Aussie/close friend Nicole Kidman did in The Others last year - turn a paper-thin-on-the-page character into one of weight and lasting impression. Marvel at the production-designed, SFXed grandeur of the (sometimes, nothing short of) apocalyptic compositions. Let yourself get wrapped up in the gloomy dampness of it all. Oh, yeah: and try to be scared (note: I am not clever enough to figure out what a towel has to do with being scared; cut me a break, I can only get only so much mileage out of one simile).
I mean, you're supposed to be scared. This is a horror film, after all, yes? But while a lot of The Ring manages to unsettle by virtue of sheer directorly/actorly force, by the 65% completion mark, plot machinations felt glib. I could see the film's exhaust pipe sputtering and The Ring began to remind me of one those people who reveal their poker hand before the final betting round has even ended. They're overeager, so confident they're gonna win. This movie forgets that it is the slyest fox whom always catches his pray.
Thus one day later, it's not the exposition that sticks with me, but the near-still frames: Naomi bolting from her lonely cabin, Naomi in CU, hair windswept, eyes apartment-gazing, the sudden trickle of blood, the little boy with his raincoat and umbrella, the aqua horse.
I am reminded of what a notable September 11th photographer wrote, when asked to compliment his devastating photos with some text: "I don't trust words."
Indeed, I advise going into The Ring keeping in mind you're gonna have to ignore some clumsy bits of screenwriting (by quality-schizophrenic Arlington Road [good]/Scream 3 [unwatchable]/Reindeer Games [unwatchable] scribe Ehren Kruger). For the first half of The Ring Kruger writes with admirable restraint, generating a palpable tension (note: while the phrase palpable tension is very hackneyed, my usage of it is an inside joke among friends). Scenes move along at just the right pace, we're pretty fucking confused, but we're happy we are. Much feels odd and out of place and we can't wait for our discovery to progress.
But then the explanation deluge hits (as does a severe bout of lethargy - the second half of this film is ssslllooowww) and it's too standard to be anything other than a letdown (though I must applaud the dark, unforgiving nature of this high-profile, big studio release in general; "props" to Dreamworks for not sanitizing).
I suppose I should overview the plot (in typically non-spoiling fashion): There is a tape. Allegedly, after you watch the tape, you receive a phone call informing your death awaits seven days henceforth. Enter Naomi Watts, investigative journalist extraordinaire.
The same Watts whom anyone with half a brain recognizes gave either the best or second best female performance last year in her x2 Mulholland Drive turn (the only comparable 2001 female performance was Charlotte Rampling's in Under the Sand; the Academy robbing both Watts and Rampling of even nominations has to be one of their biggest oversights of all time). The same Watts who's quickly cementing her status as one of the best under-40 actresses working. She's in nearly every scene of The Ring and her presence carries the film. Quietly frantic, dime-turning to tears or desperation, tender, ballsy... it's stellar, stellar genre work.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Martin Henderson, who plays the male lead opposite Watts. Hey Henderson, Ed Burns called, he wants his face back (as well as his gait, disposition and acting style). A note to The Ring's casting director: Your casting of Martin Henderson is incredibly uninspired. His watery vanilla brings nothing to his role.
The Ring almost redeems its flawed second half via its last, few, stomach-jabbing minutes. They make for an impressively visceral smack, but sadly their resonance drains when you start to contemplate their implications.
-Jared Sapolin
Mixed, to say the least. Let’s leave it up to this last guy to wrap it up for today:
Well well well. I just came back from a screening of the Ring, and I have to say a thing or two about it.
I saw the original movie first, and if you asked me to compare them, I'd say that they're equal but different. The original was much scarier because the payoff at the end was executed much better. The new one tried to imitate the exact same effect, but tried to get too tight on the 'scary shots.' (Sorry I'm trying to be vague). They totally made the last scary scene less 'out of nowhere' with one scene with a fly near the beginning that does not foreshadow it at all, but does effectively make the end a bit more scary and acceptable.
However, the plot was much more loaded in the new film, and in a good way. There is a whole sub-plot about horses that pays off really well around the end of act two, in a scene on a boat. The entire story with the mother of the girl who can predict eruptions was entirely replaced, probably to appeal more to a western audience, by a plot that does not explain at all why THIS girl has such powers, but instead gives better motivation for the girl's disappearance.
The movie is scary. The movie is shot beautifully (there's a scene in the top of a barn that just by its scale gives me the chills). The acting is uninspired. I blame a not so actor-savvy director, because I could tell that the actors could be acting a million times better, just sometimes they don't seem to be moving for the right reasons. It seems more like he told them to stand in the right place to make the shot more scary, not because the character would stand there for any particular reason. Oh yeah, and child actors suck. They did this stupid sixth sense bull with the kid which was a total waste of time. It added nothing to the story. The purpose of the kid is to give our heroes more motivation, not to give them more psychic information.
Anyway, I give this movie a 7 out of 10. I gave the original an 8, only because it was scarier.
ciao,
Bryan
I think even the most disapproving reviews so far agree there’s something worthwhile here, something that’s reaching, trying to be above average genre fare. You’ll all get a chance to see for yourselves on the 18th...
"Moriarty" out.
