3 out of 10
 

Pointless Sequel

"24 HOURS IN A DAY?, say this idea went down so well with the consumer, let`s add another one of the same length!" This just about sums up Dreamworks approach:. never mind how inappropriate, just make a sequel. Like it or loathe it, the original "The Ring", a Hollywood remake of Japan`s "Ringu" about Samara, a monstrous child who comes back to kill anyone who watches her homemade video after exactly 7 days, was a very neatly packaged horror flick with all the loose ends tied up. Whoever was handed the wooden spoon to write Ring Two has clearly not had an easy time with, frankly, nothing to write about...and how it shows. After opening moments that rehash the same storyline, various clumsy attempts are made to graft on new pieces, yet it all lacks direction and certainly none of the pressure of pace of the original.

Back at the centre is Naomi Watts as Rachel Keller to whom the intervening years have not been kind as she passes into a slightly bloated middle age and of course her kid, David Dorfman who is already so creepy that it is hard to tell who`d notice the difference if he really did get possessed by the deceased Samara. Unlike the original, however, Rachel has suddenly lost her "street-smart" head and ability to keep cool under pressure and spends most of the time running around screaming like the dumb blonde we expected from her in the original.. For instance, just prior to the attack by the deer on the car, about the only decent scene in this whole farce, her son insists, "Drive, drive", but she just sits there like Bambi caught in the proverbial headlamps - a truly surprising action for any character who had fared so well in The Ring.

The whole project is an obviously cut-price cash-grab raid on our wallets, apparently made with the price of a Tim Horton`s soup and sandwich deal. Not only is it set entirely in a backwater town to cut filming costs, but other than Watts and a superfluous, brief walk-on by Elizabeth Perkins, it's a cast of truly dreadful unknowns. truly dreadful supporting cast.
Unable to find any "raison d`etre" for the entire project, the writers have clearly toyed with borrowing plotlines from other movies, including some heavy "Rosemary`s Baby" hints about Samara being from unnatural, Satanic parenthood, but have abandoned them either as they would laughably dysfunctional, or the advice of their lawyers or, more likely both. As the curtain finally comes down on this plotless rehash, one is left with a distinctly creepy feeling, that someone, out there, beyond the celluloid is laughing not "Seven Days, that`s all you`ve got", but "Seven Bucks? Is that all we got out of you?"

Only Ring You`ll Hear is from the Cinema`s Cash Register