THE RING TWO (2005)
Starring Naomi Watts and Simon Baker
Well. Sequels can sometimes suck. This dud proves it.
What's sad is that the original American "Ring" was of course based on a Japanese masterpiece. It was a total remake in every way.
There is a sequel to that Japanese masterpiece, in Japanese, and it was apparently pretty good. But rather than remake the sequel, the geniuses over at DreamWorks decided to write their own story for the American sequel.
Bad, bad, bad idea.
True, they got the director of the original Japanese "Ring" to make this one. But the story -- written by Ehren Kruger -- just sucked. No one could pull this dung heep out of the fire.
Watts' newscaster character from the first film is back with her son in a new town recovering from the events of Part 1. She stumbles upon another videotape, tries to destroy it, only to unleash the ghost of Samara (the baddie spirit from Part 1), who now posseses her son.
There are possessed deer (a la "The Omen"), some cool levitating water effects and lots of false scares. Plus, some dead bodies show up with seriously freaked out frozen screams on their faces. Watts tries to act like the events somehow make sense, but even her tremendous, Oscar-worthy performance chops weren't enough to save such a terrible story.
Director Nakata clearly just took the job to get a fat paycheck. He must have known he was making a dung heap. Before this movie was released, he signed up to direct the American remake of the Japanese "The Eye." Clearly that would be better (since it would really be a remake).
Hopefully, there won't he a "Ring Three" in the U.S., although that is apparently too much to hope for. The film has been announced, although Watts wisely won't be returning.