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Many sequels have a hard time living up to the original. “The Ring 2” is no exception. However, it depends if you’re comparing it to the American version of the film, “The Ring” by Gore Verbinski, or the Japanese version, “Ringu” by Hideo Nakata. So, in this comparison the failure of “The Ring 2” makes sense. Let’s face it, “Ringu” was bad, therefore it’s not shocking that “The Ring 2” was bad as well. Maybe if more people had seen “Ringu” and compared it the “The Ring” they may not have been so eager to have Hideo Nakata direct it.

Just to set the record straight I’ve seen all three of these movies. I really enjoyed “The Ring.” I thought it was very well done and to be honest, it scared the hell out of me. Because of this I decided to rent its predecessor, “Ringu,” thinking it’d be just as scary, or scarier, then “The Ring.” Turns out it was so lame I almost fell asleep several times during it. This made me very wary of seeing the “The Ring 2,” but as fate, or bad luck would have it, I ended up seeing it by accident. I went to the theater and thought we were seeing “Robots” then “The Ring 2” started playing.

The result was a big waste of my time.

From the opening sequence I knew this movie would be terrible. When comparing it to the opening of “The Ring” it was like watching “Bambi.” The opening of “The Ring” made me squirm, the opening of “The Ring 2” made me roll my eyes. The entire movie gets worse from there. There were no points in the movie that made me jump, in fact, there were scarcely any scary parts in the entire movie. Was this, in fact, supposed to be a horror movie?? I think I know what happened here. When making “The Ring” Gore Verbinski set out to scare people and when Hideo Nakata set out to make his “Ring” movies, he set out to make people think about being scared.

So, the plot essentially centers around Samara, the creepy dead girl, trying to possess Naomi Watts’ kid. Okay possession, thats pretty creepy right? Kinda makes you think about “The Exorcist.” So, she wants to possess the kid so she can be alive and kill more people right? She can do more scary things this way right?? Actually no. The reason she wants to possess the kid is so she can have a mother. Oh. Wow that’s really sweet. Wait that’s not scary!!

Speaking of not scary, let’s talk about CG effects. They can make or break a movie. They definately helped to break this one. Samara’s entire appearance seems entirely digitized in a cheap, non-terrifying way. Oh and speaking of cheap and non-terrifying there was a scene with all these deer who suddenly start ramming Naomi Watts’ car. Yeah that might have been scary had they not looked completely like cartoons. Kinda makes me think of “Bambi” again.

I’ll admit it. There was ONE scene in the movie I thought was probably done well. It’s at the very end when Samara starts climbing out of the well after Rachel. However, she’s not so much climbing the wall as she is propelling all her limbs on top of one another up the wall in a jerky creepy fashion. This scene did make me think about being scared, so I guess Nakata met his goal.

However, I wouldn’t recommended seeing this movie just for that scene. You have better things to do with you life.

All and all it’s best to consider “The Ring” a completely separate entity from all the other “Ring” movies and forget that “The Ring 2” ever happened.

Reviewer: Sara Drapp

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