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THE RING
"The Ring' is a horror film built around a videotape
so sinister that anyone who watches it dies in seven days. The best
thing about the movie, which is a very elegantly crafted piece of
gothic snuff hokum, is the way it teases and intrigues us with the
revelation of what's on that tape...Naomi Watts, coming off her
triumphant good girl/nasty girl performance in'Mulholland Drive,'
proves that she can hold the screen every bit as enticingly in a
conventional genre thriller. Blond, full-lipped, and wholesomely
sensual, with a rare ability to make fear look strong, Watts has
a live-wire charisma reminiscent of the young Debra Winger." --
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"Rarely has a more serious effort produced a less serious result
than in 'The Ring,' the kind of dread dark horror film where you
better hope nobody in the audience snickers, because the film teeters
right on the edge of the ridiculous...Enormous craft has been put
into the movie, which looks just great, but the story goes beyond
contrivance into the dizzy realms of the absurd." -- Roger
Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"While impressively made, this impassive and cold feature fails,
in a spectacular fashion, to deliver the thrills...Though there
are a few chilling moments, everything in 'The Ring' feels recycled,
including the picture's look and tone, which are reminiscent of
'The Blair Witch Project'...This seems to be the season for horror
movies that are basically teases--offering a promise of a good scare
and then running away before delivering. 'The Ring' is just one
more in that cycle." -- Elvis Mitchell,
The New York Times
"Just plain stupid is a suitable appellation for 'The Ring,' an
English language version of 'Ringu,' the Japanese predecessor. Scary?
Perhaps, if you are frightened by ultra silly imagery, ghastly faces
of the dead and elementary weirdness...strictly for those who scare
easily and aren't concerned with making sense from whatever is up
there before them." -- William
Wolf, Wolf Entertainment Guide
"'The Ring's' shrewd premise is fueled not only by the omnipresence
of video copies that turn up in our lives from who knows where,
but also by a particularly modern feeling of powerlessness, by a
sense that forces out of our control have a profound and unhappy
effect on our lives...One of the keys to making 'The Ring' work
as well as it does is the strong performance by Watts, who came
to prominence with her dual role in David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive."'
It's up to her to lend credibility to this strange scenario, and
her presence succeeds in making us believe." --
Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times
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