X
- 2005
- Not Rated
- DreamWorks Distribution
- 1 h 50 m
- 2005
- Not Rated
- DreamWorks Distribution
- 1 h 50 m
Summary The story picks up six months after the horrifying events that terrorized Rachel Keller (Watts) and her son Aidan (Dorfman) in Seattle. To escape her haunting memories, Rachel takes Aidan and moves to the small coastal community of Astoria, Oregon, to start fresh. However, Rachel's resolve quickly turns to dread when evidence at a local ...
Directed By: Hideo Nakata
Written By: Ehren Kruger, Kôji Suzuki, Hiroshi Takahashi
- 2005
- Not Rated
- DreamWorks Distribution
- 1 h 50 m
- 2005
- Not Rated
- DreamWorks Distribution
- 1 h 50 m
The Ring Two
44
3.5
Summary The story picks up six months after the horrifying events that terrorized Rachel Keller (Watts) and her son Aidan (Dorfman) in Seattle. To escape her haunting memories, Rachel takes Aidan and moves to the small coastal community of Astoria, Oregon, to start fresh. However, Rachel's resolve quickly turns to dread when evidence at a local ...
Directed By: Hideo Nakata
Written By: Ehren Kruger, Kôji Suzuki, Hiroshi Takahashi
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 37 Critic Reviews
44
22% Positive
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
54% Mixed
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
24% Negative
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 37 Critic Reviews
44
22% Positive
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
54% Mixed
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
24% Negative
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
An unusually atmospheric outing. Splatter fans may be disappointed, because Nakata isn't interested in a body count.
Watts has proven herself a Lady of the Rings, but twice is enough. No burning need for a trilogy.
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 155 User Ratings
3.5
21% Positive
32 Ratings
32 Ratings
26% Mixed
40 Ratings
40 Ratings
54% Negative
83 Ratings
83 Ratings
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 155 User Ratings
3.5
21% Positive
32 Ratings
32 Ratings
26% Mixed
40 Ratings
40 Ratings
54% Negative
83 Ratings
83 Ratings
It's hardly the best film in the world but you can have fun with it.
One-scene guest star Sissy Spacek packs enough genuine madness into her brief screen time to make the surrounding film feel like so much listless play-acting.
This poorly conceived sequel to Gore Verbinski's "The Ring" ditches that film's scariest conceit.
Illustrates the law of returning diminishments.
It's only at film's end that you realize the whole soggy, overlong mess isn't going to go anywhere.
Very interesting plot and special effects cool. The film is at the level of 1 part, worthy. The high-quality acting game of Naomi and Dorfman - allows to get even deeper into the atmosphere of the film.
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It took me too long to finally get around to watching this. Being such a huge fan of the original, and hearing dreadful things about the sequel, my expectations were rather low. While it's nothing exceptional, The Ring Two is a moderately creepy sequel, even if it does seem like a departure from the original's themes. In The Ring Two, Rachel and her son, Aidan, have moved away to Oregon to get away from the terrifying events that occured in Seattle, but Samara has followed them and plans on taking Aidan's life for her own. Something you'll notice from the very first scene is how much different this movie is to its predecessor. Where The Ring used the seven-day time limit to create tension and simple, yet haunting visuals to scare its audience, The Ring Two seems to focus more on big, flashy special effects to overwhelm the viewer. That becomes a huge distraction throughout the entire film, as the CGI looks cheesy and outdated today. This tone of the movie also seems very unfocused. The tone meanders throughout the entire film, going from your average ghost flick to a mystery-thriller like the original to a sort of evil child movie. That's not to say it isn't engaging; The Ring Two is, for the most part, rather entertaining, and it never tries, fortunately, it never tries to be too "intelligent", and then end up being convoluted and confusing. The plot itself is very tight and controlled. It's just tonally inconsistent. I also want to mention the incredible score. It's seriously one of the best and most memorable scores to any horror film in recent memory, and it really adds to the creepy atmosphere of the movie. The Ring Two is certainly not a remarkable film, but it is an entertaining and creepy little supernatural thriller.
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As far as I'm concerned, it's official: Hollywood has lost the art of how to make horror films. Consider this year's entries as Exhibit A - everything from White Noise to The Ring 2 has been horrible. There's not a worthwhile film in the bunch. And nowadays, it has become popular to remake incoherent Japanese ghost stories into less cogent English-language versions. The Ring and The Grudge are prime examples of this kind of bankrupt storytelling philosophy. Give me Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or The Shining any day.
I was not a fan of the American edition of The Ring. It did too little with an intriguing premise, offered a confusing and often dumb storyline, and was low on the creepiness scale. But compared to its successor, The Ring was pure genius. The Ring 2 is slickly made garbage - a dull, plodding horror movie that ventures into the realm of idiocy when it isn't busy remaking the first film. This is yet another example of what happens when money, not creativity, drives the production of a sequel. Despite its flaws, The Ring worked as a self-contained story. Opening it up for a second installment is a mistake. The evidence is on the screen.
If you're expecting scares from The Ring 2, you will be disappointed. Except for a few half-hearted "boo!" moments, this film has little to offer that will raise the nape hairs. The horror, to the extent that it can be called by that word, is standard, by-the-book stuff that has been neutered in order to appeal to a PG-13 crowd. It's stale. Even the one potentially edgy aspect of the movie ends up being blunted to the point where it couldn't cut butter. And, because The Ring 2 doesn't have a clear idea of where it's going, its rules and restrictions regarding the ghost and her behavior are arbitrary.
With the exception of an opening sequence that echoes that of The Ring, the most intriguing element of the first movie - that watching a video tape can result in a death sentence - is eliminated. Maybe the reason for this is that the VCR is fast becoming obsolete, joining the 8-track deck and the record player in garage sales. Can a DVD have ghostly beings encoded on it? Although The Ring 2 doesn't do much with videotapes, it offers something new: Bambi run amok. Watch and see why it's a good idea to allow hunters to thin the herd.
Naomi Watts and David Dorfman have the thankless jobs of reprising their roles as Rachel and Aidan Keller. Everyone else from The Ring gets this film off. Replacements include Elizabeth Perkins as a psychologist, Simon Baker as a reporter, and Sissy Spacek as Carrie 35 years older (or something like that). None of these secondary characters comes close to growing a personality, but that's pretty much true of the leads as well. We identify with Rachel and her son because we have known them longer.
In many ways, the film's production history is more interesting than the resulting movie. After Gore Verbinski (director of The Ring) decided he would rather go chasing pirates than try on a second Ring, the producers approached Hideo Nakata, who made both Ringu (the Japanese original) and Ringu 2 (the Japanese sequel). However, while The Ring was a remake of Ringu, The Ring 2 has nothing to do with Ringu 2. So this means Nakata got a chance to make two different first sequels. At least he can't claim that someone else messed up the American version of his franchise. He did it all by himself.
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The remake had horses on a boat. This one had deer in a forest. This is like the fifth in the series and like Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) - they both **** monkey butt. The first time I tried to watch this I got bored, the second time I got further with the same outcome. I finally managed to get through to the end and felt like I had wasted my time. This is a perfect reason not to make another sequel to the remake. This was just one ring too far. The only two redeeming features were the way that they tried to progress the story and they did shock me with something popping up on the screen unexpectedly.
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Production Company
Dreamworks Pictures,
BenderSpink,
Parkes/MacDonald Image Nation,
Vertigo Entertainment
Release Date Mar 18, 2005
Duration 1 h 50 m
Rating Not Rated
Tagline Fear comes full circle.
Awards
Teen Choice Awards
• 3 Nominations
Golden Trailer Awards
• 2 Nominations
Golden Schmoes Awards
• 2 Nominations
