Written by Tommy Tracy
Rings Plot Summary:
Fifteen years after her first reign of terror, Samara returns, angrier than ever that she had been forgotten. Utilizing today’s technology, she attempts to make her curse go viral.
In 2002, a 12-year-old me sat in a dingy movie theater with a few friends, eagerly anticipating The Ring. Two hours later, I left the theater, shaking after witnessing one of the most horrifying and unsettling films ever made. I jumped every time the house phone rang (yes, we had one) and barely slept that night. What if seeing this film caused this little girl to call and inform me I only had seven days to live? Eventually, my horror subsided and I quickly found The Ring to be an amazing film, filled with twists and turns and, most importantly, a truly good remake. Two years later, The Ring 2 was released but did not have the same effect. In fact, it was pretty awful. Now it’s 2017 and Rings has finally been released, the third film in the (American) Ring trilogy and, again, it’s met with a bit of apathy.
Rings follows a new group of people (Naomi Watts does not return) as they find Samara’s haunted VHS tape and are then haunted by the images of her tragedy. Luckily, the filmmakers realize that we currently live in 2017 and no one under the age of 20 knows what a VHS is. However, the tape is converted to the now archaic Quicktime file by Johnny Galecki’s Gabriel. This is one of the film’s many faults, as copying a Quicktime file to save yourself from certain death isn’t nearly as time consuming as copying a VHS. Added to the ridiculous plane crash scene that opens the film (which is glimpsed in the trailers), it’s easy to say Rings does not start off on the right foot.
The film also suffers from introducing too many characters all at once. We meet the three characters on the plane, the aforementioned Gabriel, two lovers, Julia (Matilda Lutz) and Holt (Alex Roe), punky Skye (Aimee Teegarden) and a mixture of other faces that sadly do not mean much. Though the film is acted well, it’s hard to take anyone’s side. Most characters are clueless as to what is going on and those who do, such as Gabriel, are reprehensible beyond belief. Gabriel is a college professor and is the reason these kids have seen this video, as he is studying the effects of the tape on the psyche. It’s a bit convoluted but does offer a fresh take on the background of Samara.
On the subject of Samara, she is still played by an actress (Bonnie Morgan) but a lot of her scenes are blatant CGI that look straight out of the year 2000. She isn’t as frightening as she was fifteen years ago, nor as tragic. However, her ability to change the fate of Julia’s viewing of the tape is absolutely fantastic and this film’s strongest attribute. While everyone else sees the images we are accustomed to from the first film, Julia sees a whole new set of images, ones that will piece together the history of Samara and her family. There are twists (why does everything I review have a twist?), which do come full circle (or ring, if you will) with the first film.
Rings is not a bad film, but does leave a lot to be desired. Where the first film is terrifying (as is the Japanese Ringu), this is just…there. It suffers from poor jump scares and very silly CGI. The story is a strong mix of clever and stupid, endearing but consisting of many logical holes. It’s a hard film to review because there are things to like and things to hate.
