The Ring Two (Unrated Edition)
Directed By: Hideo Nakata
Studio: DreamWorks
Year: 2005
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
Running Time: 2 Hr. 8 Mins.
Rating: Unrated
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital (English, French), 2.0 Dolby Digital (English)
Subtitles: English, French, and Spanish
MSRP: $29.99
Street Date: 23 August, 2005
Review Date: 28 August, 2005
(Ratings are out of five stars)
Summary
It was only a matter of time before the powers that be decided to release a follow-up to the sleeper hit of 2002. This time around, DreamWorks recruited Hideo Nakata (the director of the original Japanese Ring) to continue the good work started by Gore Verbinski. The story picks up where the first film left off. Rachael Keller (Naomi Watts) and her son Aidan (David Dorfman) have moved off to Smalltown, USA in an effort to escape their past. It isn’t too long before nasty ol’ Samara starts up to her old tricks and begins killing people through the boob-tube. Rachael and Aidan are forced to join up with cookie-cutter concerned male lead, Max (Simon Baker) and take down Samara once and for all.
If you’ve seen any horror sequels, you can figure out this one without even watching it. Rather than creating a unique film that expounds on the mythology set up in the first film, Nakata (a damn good director when he wants to be) chooses to cover the same ground addressed by The Ring. The first film built a strong atmosphere highlighted by well-executed jump-scares. This time around Nakata uses a little more flair when compared to the subdued nature of the original. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the former. CGI is overused here, and it looks sub par for the most part. The deer sequence is a good example of bad looking CGI that should have been done another way (even if that other way was cutting the scene).
Any product built around a gimmick makes it hard to follow up without seeming…well, gimmicky. I’m not calling the first Ring a gimmick flick, but with something as unique and identifiable, you run into a situation where the sequel has a hard time not appearing like an imitation. This is especially hard to get around in the horror genre. Just look at all of the Halloween and Friday the 13th flicks. From the opening sequence forward, Ring Two feels like a retread of the first film. Atmosphere is built, and then deconstructed with bad jump-scares and weak death scenes.
Simon Baker is fine as the male counterpart to Watt’s heroine, but he doesn’t bring any of the humor that Martin Henderson brought to the first film. Young David Dorfman was great in the first Ring as well as the Texas Chainsaw remake from a couple of years ago, and he’s solid here too. He’s able to provide a level of intelligence that a lot of young actors can’t handle and he carries a heavier load this time around. Naomi Watts is just as convincing here as she was the first time, but the film just isn’t compelling enough to hold my interest, so all of the good acting seems moot. The story does pick up some steam about halfway through, but by that point I just wasn’t interested anymore.
Film Rating:
Video
Colors seemed accurate, although not nearly as stylized as in the first film. There’s a fair amount of grain throughout the movie, but I didn’t mind it. I don’t really find that a fault of the transfer, and I’d much rather have grain than an over-processed video-like appearance. Regardless of what I did like, this transfer was not without it’s problems. For example, I noticed occasional shimmering pixels on the edge of objects in addition to some banding problems in darker scenes. I’ve read that the new scenes not present in the theatrical version look significantly worse than the rest of the film. I didn’t see the film theatrically, so I can’t be sure what was new, but I did notice that certain scenes looked over-processed and noisy compared to the rest of the film. The first scene I noticed was the flea-market/fair sequence. The discussion between Watts and Simon Baker looked very noisy and colors were over-saturated. Whether this was intentional or not, it just looks bad. Compared to how strong the transfer was on the first film, this is a big disappointment.
Video Rating:
Audio
As opposed to the sub par video, the soundtrack is pretty solid on this DVD. The first movie had a bombastic DTS track, and while the sequel drops the DTS, the 5.1 Dolby Digital track is every bit as good. Dialog is represented accurately. Surround channels and LFE are utilized well without overwhelming the soundtrack.
Audio Rating:
Extras
The first thing that pops out about this DVD is the immense amount of extras as compared to the release of the first film. I loved the first Ring and was disappointed when it was released with minimal extras. In the case of this DVD, it’s the opposite; a sub par film gets a decent set of extras. Oh well. One downside is that excluding the short film, Rings, none of the extras are presented anamorphically.
Walter Parkes Introduces Rings(0:49) – A short introduction to the mini-film, Rings.
Rings(16:39) – This is an interesting feature. It’s a short film that shows the background of the young man featured in the opening sequence of The Ring Two. The set up is that our protagonist, Jake watches the tape and films the events that take place afterward. His goal is to tape more than anyone before him…specifically seven days worth. The film takes us through Jake’s nightmarish week and works as a pretty interesting set up to the film. Visually the short is quite spiffy, but its characters are standard cliché horror movie teenagers.
Faces of Fear: The Cast(6:12) – A quick look at the two movies from the perspective of the actors and producers. It isn’t too detailed, but you get a good feeling of what the cast and crew were trying to get across.
Fear on Film: Special Effects(5:45) – A very short summary of the major special effects sequences in the film. As someone who thought the CG sucked, I didn’t find this particularly interesting.
Samara: From Eye to Icon(5:48) – This feature covers Samara from make-up to history. I liked hearing Rick Baker talk about his make-up, but most of the rest seemed repetitive.
The Power of Symbols(5:20) – Here is another very short feature, but I found it more interesting than the rest. As the title suggests, it’s a look at the importance of symbols in the film, of which there are many.
HBO First Look: The Making of Ring Two(13:01) – Like the other HBO First Looks, this is a conventional behind-the-scenes take on the making of The Ring Two. If you’ve already watched the film, this doesn’t serve much of a purpose. It primarily summarizes the film for people who haven’t seen it yet.
Deleted Scenes(18:36) – A series of eleven scenes that found the cutting room floor. They’re all non-anamorphic and still have time stamps on the bottom of the frame.
The DVD also features Production Notes, Cast and Filmmaker Biographies, and previews of other DreamWorks releases.
Extras Rating:
In Closing…
I’m a big fan of the first Ring, as well as the original Japanese film. Pairing up the stellar surviving cast with the director of the original film seems like a can’t-lose formula. Unfortunately, the film just didn’t come together. Scares are less atmospheric this time around, and the feeling of discovery that made the first film so interesting is non-existent. What we’re left with is a film that knows it’s a sequel and doesn’t make any attempt to stand on it’s own feet. As a horror buff, I’m glad I got the chance to finally see this one (I didn’t bother to when it was in the theater), but I can only recommend this one as a rental. The extras are fairly plentiful, but you can’t perfume a stinker with shiny features. Unless you’re already a fan of this film, I’d suggest saving your money.
Overall Rating:
Matt Stone
28 August, 2005
