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The Ring 2 |
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Rachel and her son Aidan have moved to a small town
to escape the memories about the videotape with evil
little girl Samara that nearly killed them. But
when a teenage boy is killed by that very same
curse in their new town the horrors starts again
and Rachel realizes she has to find away to stop
Samara for good.
First of all, the fact that Hideo Nakata - the
director of the original Ringu - also directed this
makes no difference. He was obviously under extreme
control by the producers as this sequel seems even
more "Hollywood" with flashy effects and MTV-like
camerawork. Question is also if his limited
language resulted in some uneven and stilted
character developments. But these are of course
only theories.
OK, so Samara is back and our heroine must find a
way to stop her for good. Does this sound familiar?
Of course it does. The Ring Two is a typical horror
sequel where our leading characters who survived
the first film believes all is fine and well until
someone dies, another begins having nightmares and
the horror starts again. And now our heroine must
search in the history of the horror. Problem is
that the first movie already was in this mystery
territory and it becomes a bit tedious when Rachel
visits various people from Samara's past.
The Ring Two fails horribly to avoid the typical
horror clichés. It's enough that it's constructed
like a stereotypical sequel, but also falls into
such traps as that of no one believes the heroine
and accuses her of being the problem - that is until
it's too late of course. It all feels a little like
a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel (note: Wes Craven's
New Nightmare) and with one or two more movies
Samaras could be our new Freddy Krueger (without
the one-liners).
Plot wise this is a string of expected and obvious
clichés. There are very few surprises and the punch
line in the climax (where it's revealed how to stop
Samara) is pretty lame. It feels like storyline was
just pushed together in order to make flashy and
scary horror scenes. And indeed, the film looks
great but it's never that scary. It often has a
nice atmosphere and delivers a few shocks but it
never kicks in.
The special effects are good. Thank God there's not
much CGI but some nice references to the first film.
But the effects seems like a priority and sometimes
feels pretty corny. A part of the film uses reindeers
as a nod to the horse in The Ring and your reaction
to this depends on how scared you might be
by reindeers...
Naomi Watts and David Dorfman are actually better
here than in The Ring. In comparison to that film,
Watts shows more emotions here while Dorfman acts
more like a "normal" kid. They have some great
scenes together even if their chemistry feels a
little pushed. A talented supporting cast of
veterans are wasted though. It's great to see
Sissy Spaceck return to the horror screen for the
first time since Carrie but she is sadly
underused in a key role. Gary Cole has an
annoying comic relief cameo while Elizabeth
Perkins is good as a bitchy doctor.
Just one tiny drop of blood. Like the first film,
this depends more on gross-out corpse makeup.
The music by Hans Zimmer, who also composed The
Ring, is effective and manages to build up
suspense for some scenes that aren't really scary.
A very uneven, typical sequel which story is
drowned in clichés and makes Samara feel like
Freddy Krueger. It's looks great though, has a
nice atmosphere, good performances by the leads
and a moody score. OK but nothing more.
Review By: Slicer-Dicer
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