By Adam Goetz
Despite a seemingly trite premise, this highly stylized thriller hits the mark. Exceptional cinematography, eerie visuals and stand out acting performances all set the perfect mood for The Ring. This artistic thriller is a remake of the 1996 Japanese film Ringu, which boasted enormous success in Asia and plenty of praise from critics.
In this version we follow a newspaper reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) as she investigates the strange deaths of four teenagers, one of whom is her niece. All the deaths appear to happen exactly one week after watching a certain videotape. Eventually Rachel tracks down the video and watches it. Knowing that she only has seven days to solve the mystery, she enlists the aid of her friend Noah (Martin Henderson) to save her life and the life of her son (David Dorfman).
A lot of you are probably thinking Urban Legends 3, but let me assure you that as this movie develops you find that it isn’t your standard slasher flick. The urgency of the plot and the visuals work well together to draw you in and keep your attention. Director Gore Verbinski uses extreme angles, reflections and low-key lighting to intensify the suspense effectively without impairing the pace of the film.
The video itself is a beautiful composition of several obscure images quickly edited together to give it a nightmarish quality. It is worth the admission just to see these 30 seconds of cinematic bliss.
But whenever there is no eye candy on screen, the acting performances shine bright.
Up-and-coming child actor David Dorfman didn’t have a large role, but he seemed to contribute the most to the ambience on screen. Dorfman’s somber mood throughout really helped convey the magnitude of the dilemma. And Watts’ performance was an excellent follow up to her role in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Although there was some flaky overacting, she did manage to redeem herself later on in the film.
Now, I don’t know how much was borrowed from the original, but this style of movie does seem to be a departure from what Verbinski has done in the past. Both Mouse Hunt and The Mexican are not movies that I would consider artistic (or good for that matter) but with all comparisons aside, this is definitely one of the better suspense thrillers out there.