THE RING (2002) **1/2 After about ten minutes you can be forgiven for fearing that you've bought into a really stupid teen flick, but stay the course. Gore Verbinski borrows heavily from a liberal palate of genre flicks (The Shining and Poltergeist most obviously, but there's a term paper in identifications), but he does so without it seeming much more unnatural than the subject matter demands, and for most of the teenagers it's new stuff, anyway (wow, how does he have so many ideas?). The plot, of course, is that there's this video that kills people who watch it; an idea probably better suited to a satirical skit than a feature film. Verbinski manages to avoid the many landmines, and keep the suspense at a much higher level than the material deserves, by keeping the screen dark and interesting. Islands, lighthouses, horses, beaches, the beautiful Washington state countryside, barns, wells...he keeps it all ominous with lighting, moving cameras, and long shots down lots of passageways. Hans Zimmer's music, which never actually goes anywhere but constantly threatens to, is just about perfect accompaniment for what Verbinski's doing visually. The symbols of the film-inside-the-film are well selected, and if they ultimately prove to be more interesting than revealing you can always check out a Dreyer flick next time. Naomi Watts isn't a great actress, but she doesn't make unnecessary mistakes that ruin scenes either, and her B-actress scream is absolutely first rate. David Dorfman has the eyes for a career in horror films, maybe even with scripts being written around them, like they used to do for Marty Feldman. The very best part of the film, though, is unquestionably Guy Richardson's line of comic relief.
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