Anyone who saw the juicy in-between sequel short film "Rings", which was released as a separate promotional disc before the film's seminal release, and is now said to be included on the DVD for the sequel, will know what the opening sequence with Ryan Merriman and Emily VanCamp is all about. The sad aspect of "Rings" was that in
its short window, of twenty minutes, it managed to be ten times better than "Ring Two" ever really hoped to be. Had the writers taken that short film and expanded on it with a full length film, it would have led to a very creepy and intense thriller, but a repeat of the first is okay, I guess... I mean, it makes more sense with different characters, but--hey--I don't work in Hollywood. Nakata, in spite of his lack of creative control on a remake of his own film, manages to give some truly inspired direction which starts as grim and bleak in to utterly kinetic and surreal. Meanwhile Sissy Spacek has a good cameo here as a pivotal character as well as the often under-used Gary Cole as a real estate salesman, and the utterly scrumptious Elizabeth Perkins as a child counselor.

As a sequel "The Ring Two" feels awfully detached, which makes me reflect upon my thoughts applying to sequels. I am always for sequels that manage to extend a story from the first, and as a sequel it extends the story and progresses the characters just fine, but it just ends up feeling like a stand alone film with a completely different feel from the first. In spite of what many horror fans have said, I thought "The Ring" was a great supernatural thriller with tight direction from Gore Verbinski, but this time original director of the "Ringu" franchise, Hideo Nakata, steps up to the plate and doesn't help this sequel. It's not Nakata's fault that this is a lackluster film simply because Nakata didn't have as much
control on the film as he wanted, not to mention the film was edited in to something completely different from what he wanted.

For the true definitive vision of Nakata's, you can turn to the DVD, but I saw the original release, and it's not a very good movie. I gather the studios thought they'd market off of Naomi Watt's some more, so instead of following  someone else this time which would--I don't know--make sense, we're back with Rachel and Aidan who appear in an awfully boring contrived mystery. Now Rachel has moved to a small town working at a low rent newspaper and now Samara returns. This time the plot has nothing to do with the tapes and centers around Samara who has plans for Aidan that Rachel is trying to uncover, which adds to yet another repetitive second half of Rachel visiting different areas to learn about Samara, and back to her house, where we learn another utterly ridiculous origin to Samara which is re-interpreted all the while breaking any sense of continuity from the first film, and raising so many unanswered questions that make up this disjointed narrative.

If getting rid of the tape was as easy as burning it, why didn't they do it in the first film? Do they still have the curse with or without the tape? Did burning the tape free Samara from her video prison? Or is she now able to surpass that? If Samara is so frightened of water, why does she use it as a means of transportation? If Samara ends up adopted, what's the point of the appearance of Brian Cox in the first film? And what in heavens name was the point of the deer attack on the road? Was it Samara possessing them? If so, why would she intend on hurting either of them? It's a very pointless sequence that adds no relevance to the mystery at hand. Unlike its predecessors "Ring Two" lacks suspense and comes off as very bland and awfully predictable.

There are sequences that are just too routine to be taken seriously, and the plot makes the harsh crime of forcing originality while being incredibly derivative of "The Omen", "The Bad Seed", and "The New Nightmare". A creepy young boy being haunted by a demon who has mysterious plans for him shows up bruised, his mom on wits end brings him to the hospital, they think she's abusing him, and now she must venture in to his dreams to fight off the force. Did writer Kruger just take pages from "New Nightmare" or what? And poor Simon Baker--I wish I could judge your performance buddy, but the problem is you're hardly in this to be considered a part of the cast. Don't worry, you were good in "Land of the Dead". In the end, "The Ring Two" feels incomplete and is immensely sloppy, without a lick of sense.

It's less of a sequel and more of an individual disconnected installment in the end. It's practically a spin-off with the same characters. Though the characters progress, the story is stuck in a predictable, derivative, and listless cycle wasting all resources including Nakata's directing skill and is just a sloppy cash-in.

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