Saturday 4 February 2017

Rings (2017)



“In which Samara's Well Has Truly Run Dry”

The poster for this one hanging in our local cinema right now claims an October 31st release date for this one. The poster up there also seems to think this should have been released at another time. Having watched RINGS this afternoon I would have to say that a better alternative release date for this one would be never, rather than its actual UK release date of 3rd February 2017.
Yes, sorry everyone but RINGS is rubbish and, if nothing else, proves that screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is still capable of ruining a franchise all these years after his crap-stained fingertips starting hitting the keyboard to give us the bag of noisy confusion that was BATMAN FOREVER (1995).


A more fun thing to do than watch RINGS
I may be wrong in blaming Mr Goldman for RINGS being the uninspired tedium that it quickly becomes, but that’s only because as you watch this one, there’s the definite feeling that there are at least two other, vastly more entertaining, movies struggling to emerge from the mire.
RINGS opens with a cracking prologue set on a plane that makes you think it’s going to be the FINAL DESTINATION 6 some of us are still hoping will get made someday. Then we get about twenty minutes of a promising idea where it seems mad scientist Johnny Galecki is trying to get his entire university class to watch the cursed videotape in some bizarre leapfrogging experiment that’s bound to go wrong and lead to the world being invaded by a horde of Sadakos...sorry...Samaras.
Isn’t it?
Isn’t it?


Stop watching it, Johnny!
A third of the way into RINGS everything... just... stops, and it turns into one of those horrible, generic, cliched, and worst of all extremely dull ‘laying a ghost to rest’ plots that kills any interest or enthusiasm you might have been harbouring for this one stone dead. The plot is hackneyed, the dialogue is terrible, Vincent D’Onofrio turns up as a blind cemetery caretaker and his identity is probably meant to be a twist to people who have spent the last forty years safely closeted away from any kind of film ever. The leads are dull as ditchwater, the only interesting and watchable performance coming from Galecki who isn’t in this anywhere near as much as he should be.
RINGS is crap. Even SADAKO VS KAYAKO, Japan’s own misjudged monster bash between two scary characters whose main selling point is lurking rather than actually saying or doing anything very much, is better than this. I’m not suggesting you watch that either, by the way, but I am saying you should definitely spend your money on something other than RINGS.


RINGS is out in UK cinemas now. Go and watch something else.  

1 comment:

  1. Hi John, was thinking about this one myself, but thought it contradicted Ring 2 where they lay Samara to rest, this one does seem like an in it for the money effort with a lazy and loopy half baked 'plot'. Jasp

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