The
Ring: Full of Sound and Fury The
Ring: Full of Sound and FuryIn this column over the years, I have written about a number of good movies that have affected me in different ways--movies that have thrilled me, chilled me, touched me, even disturbed me. The Ring is a movie that has done all of those things and more!
Most importantly, The Ring is a movie that impressed me.
This is all the more surprising, considering the familiar ground the filmmakers tread early. Directed by Gore Verbinski, The Ring starts off a lot like Scream, then goes on to resemble Urban Legend and Final Destination for a few minutes, comes close to ripping off The Sixth Sense in a scene or two after that, but then finds a dark and twisted path of suspense and terror all its own for the remainder of its 115-minute running time.
This film has drawn early comparisons to The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby. Two classics. Fair? Of course not. That's just studio marketing staffers looking for easy quotes to put in movie ads. The Ring is its own beast, but what a beast it is. It's a movie that aims for and earns the adjectives "disturbing," "unnerving," and "intense." I think it's an absolutely terrific motion picture, one that I will be seeing at least a couple more times in the theater partly for my own appreciation of the work on screen and partly because I will love listening to an audience squirm ... especially when I know what's coming.
The Ring is not just about delivering a few good scares. It's actually more unsettling than it is scary. It's also not a movie where its makers put all their energy in two or three showy sequences, but ignored the rest of their picture. This is a complete film, folks; a film that promises to put you in the presence of evil and does. Even if it doesn't freak you out as much as it did me, you will still marvel at how astonishingly well-made it is. Credit Verbinksi and his Oscar-caliber production crew that includes production designer Tom Duffield, director of photography Bojan Bazelli, and editor Craig Wood. In addition, six-time Academy Award winner Rick Baker created the special makeup effects for this film. I'm not even going to tell you what he did for this film. I'll let his work on screen speak for itself.
OK, enough praise. Let me give you a little plot set-up. Just a little now. I swear not to spoil any of this film's twists. The Ring is actually a remake of one of Japan's highest-grossing motion pictures ever. Naomi Watts stars as Rachel Keller, an investigative reporter whose teenage niece was found dead (seemingly of fright) as the movie begins. Through the girl's friends, Rachel learns of the existence of a mysterious videotape full of weird, nightmarish images and sounds. Dead horses on a beach. A woman brushing her hair in a mirror. That same woman jumping off a cliff. If you watch this tape, your phone will ring when it's over and a child's voice will whisper, "Seven days." You hear those words, and that's your ass. You have a week to make peace with whatever God you believe in.
Rachel tracks down the tape and watches it. Sure enough, she gets the call. While she is skeptical at first, it soon becomes clear that her life is indeed in serious jeopardy. The seven-day time frame gives the film a terrific structure for Rachel to enlist the aid of former lover and video editor, Noah (Martin Henderson), and try and unravel the tape's mysteries before it is too late.
The Ring hits on all cylinders. The look of this film is just amazing, like an art film crossed with a modern horror flick. Thankfully, the technical brilliance does not overshadow the performers for once. While Watts is not a household name (she made a splash last year in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive), she bears a passing resemblance to Nicole Kidman and Jeri Ryan of Star Trek: Voyager that just makes it easier to get attached to her. Henderson, meanwhile, is a poor man's Edward Burns, but he really comes on late in the film when Noah and Rachel are forced to separate and investigate the tape and its contents from different angles.
The one weak link of the film is the now-obligatory Haley Joel Osment/Rory Culkin of the piece. That's right. Rachel has a slightly creepy young son (David Dorfman) who sometimes is able to see and feel more than the adults around him. The character eventually has a reason for being in the picture. I just think there was a way to do this film without this element, which is just becoming redundant now.
But this is only a minor criticism on Durgin's constant search for movie perfection. The Ring is all about fear. Feeling it, dealing with it, conquering it. My fear now is that I have oversold the movie, because I really went into it with very little expectations. I will only say that it's not The Exorcist. It's not Rosemary's Baby. It's not The Sixth Sense.
But it's close, my friends. It's real close.
Amazingly, The Ring is rated PG-13 for thematic elements, disturbing images, language, and some minor drug references. This movie is not about graphic killings or cheap scares. Verbinski is more concerned with creating an atmosphere of dread and daring his audience to join with Rachel to unravel a mystery. In conversations with my friends, I have been likening it to Seven, the 1995 thriller starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt.
A must see!
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