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The Ring Two (2005)

Reviewed by Matt
Posted on August 17, 2005 
Filed Under Asian movies, Ghosts, Remakes, Sequels, Series

Whichever way you look at it, it’s hard not to view The Ring Two as being a crushing disappointment. This follow-up to the US remake of the Japanese classic (you may need to draw a diagram to follow that) was passed over by several directors until it ended up in the hands of Hideo Nakata, the Japanese director who brought us the original Ring. Considering that the US film itself wasn’t too shabby, you could be forgiven for getting excited by this; unfortunately, The Ring Two is almost guaranteed to shake your faith in both the versatility of the original concept and in Nakata’s abilities as a director.

Where do you begin with this mess of a film? Primarily, there’s the sense that Nakata and screenwriter Ehren Kruger are making it up as they go along, so listlessly do they pick at imagery and plot points from the previous film(s) before carelessly tossing in new elements. The original was driven by the race against time to solve Samara’s curse before Aidan died; without that countdown, the plot’s almost completely freeform, with Aidan (now apparently channelling Samara) acting as a magnet for all sorts of supernatural phenomena. Cue a CGI deer attack (that’s right) which seems to come from nowhere and head the same way. Frustratingly, this also pushes David Dorfman’s utterly irritating Aidan to centre stage, effectively making this yet another spooky kid movie. Aidan falls ill and is hospitalised, and his mother Rachel is suspected of abuse, until Aidan manages to make his doctor kill herself (in one of the film’s few genuinely shocking moments).

Rachel then decides that Samara’s curse lives on simply because… she just wants a mother who’ll love her. At this point, the movie abandons the Ring story altogether and becomes a complete re-tread of Nakata’s own Dark Water (recently remade in the States… are you confused yet?), complete with spooky running taps and water that won’t behave as it should. Totally illogical, and utterly lazy, Nakata may as well have stepped in front of the camera at this point and apologised for having completely run out of ideas. Anyway, Rachel somehow then finds herself ‘within’ the deadly videotape, complete with pointlessly 2-D surroundings and scanlines, and decides that actually Samara doesn’t want to be loved; she then dispatches her down the well with a single line that brings what remains of the film’s credibility crashing down around its ears. Job done.

Having nailed my colours to the mast as being a devotee of the original film, this film made me reassess my view of Nakata’s work. I still think the original Ring is a visionary, ground-breaking piece, but I’m not so sure about what he’s done since; Dark Water is a great film but very similar to Ring (both in story and style), and the Japanese Ring 2 offered up a reasonably compelling remix of the first film. Ring Two was always going to be a make or break film, and unfortunately he proves himself to be a one trick pony, doomed to retell the same story with diminishing returns (if you include Dark Water, this is the fourth time he’s done it). His boredom is reflected on the screen, and save for a few moments of excitement, is likely to be shared by his audience. Gore Verbinski’s film is way better than this; whether The Ring Two has killed the franchise remains to be seen, but if we get a Ring Three, then some fresh blood is desperately needed.

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