Movie Review

The Ring Two

"The Ring 2" travels along the same path as its 2002 predecessor, beginning with dumb teenagers and then riding the coattails of the parent-child in peril story. The only main difference this time around is a change in director, having Hideo Nakata replace Gore Verbinski at the helm. Nakata is responsible for the Japanese version, Ringu, plus its Japanese sequel. I haven't seen either film but considering the massive following the films have generated, I can only determine that the man is a master craftsman (or as close to a craftsman as a horror director can possibly be).

The story picks up in small town Astoria, where Rachel (Naomi Watts) and her son, Aidan (David Dorfman), hope to put their troubled past behind them and live a new life. Only a problem occurs when a teenager dies, looking exactly the same way Rachel's niece did when she died. This tips Rachel off that Samara is back and her reign of terror is far from over. Without giving away too much, Samara is also after Aidan, Rachel is determined to figure out why, and there is also a child abuse subplot to make Rachel appear crazy to everybody else.

Nakata's direction here is considerably less murky than Gore Verbinski's, but keeps to the regular conventions of every other horror film. He focuses his camera on things like light bulbs going out, characters with insanely blank expressions, and things and characters popping up out of nowhere. And he wraps it all up with a chillingly ominous musical score that lets us know something evil is coming. The special effects look fake, but incredibly cool anyway, including one scene where Rachel and Aiden are attacked by elk and another where a wall of water encompasses Aiden in the bath tub.

If you?re aqua-phobic, I would suggest staying away. Water leaks from under doors, walls, faucets, and so on, and it's one of several things that make the mystery almost as good as the first film. Much like his work in the first film, writer Ehren Kruger proves a pro at peaking our interest and also giving us an emotional center in the relationship between Rachel and her son. Naomi Watts, in particular, does a great job with that element of the story, showing a dedicated mother willing to do anything to save her son.

Only Kruger's ideas seem to run out by the last half-hour of the film. Sissy Spacek shows up (as Samara's institutionalized mommy) muttering some ridiculous gibberish that is supposed to answer all of our questions but only leaves us scratching our heads. A character is drowned and then suddenly comes back to life, and then there is the final showdown between Rachel and Samara, which ends in an incredibly simplistic fashion. "The Ring 2" does a nice job of capturing our interest, but then chooses to take us to a sillier and less satisfying place.

Craig's Grade: C+

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%