FilmBlather.com

"Before you die, you see the ring."

The Ring ranks up there among the most crushing disappointments of my moviegoing career, though that fact didn't register until its final frames. It inhabits, or seems at first to inhabit, one of my very favorite genres, the freaky supernatural mystery. The premise is one of the best in recent months, something out of a particularly clever X-Files episode: a video tape that kills you a week after you watch it. And how fucking cool is that tagline: "Before you die, you see the ring." The first 90 minutes of the movie, directed with unexpected artistry by Gore "The Mexican" Verbinsk, seem to justify all of that promise, but the movie is utterly unable to tie up its admittedly creepy ideas with any degree of coherence, leaving me with so many logistical questions that I immediately forgot about the number of times it made me lean forward in my chair.

The story, as I mentioned, is a brilliant high concept. It begins with one teenage girl telling another the urban legend of a video tape that kills you after you watch it. It turns out that the other girl watched that very same tape a week ago with her buddies at a remote lodge; mere minutes later, she dies of a massive stroke and a stopped heart. Her mother, wise to the fact that normal teenagers don't just randomly have strokes, enlists her friend Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), a reporter for the Seattle PI to ask some questions as to her daughter's recent activities.

Like any good journalist, Rachel begins by finding the tape and watching it (I won't reveal what it consists of). When it is over, she immediately gets a phone call with a voice whispering "seven days..." The incident creeps her out, but she doesn't think much of it until she discovers that her face shows up distorted on any camera picture she takes of herself, that the tape somehow screws with the tracking numbers on the VCR, and that images from the video keep popping up in random places...

Those familiar with my tastes know that I live for this sort of thing, and that I'm willing to forgive almost anything in a movie that effectively messes with my head (see The Mothman Prophecies). The Ring is very effective for much of its running time, so much so that the grade below is misleading; the film is disappointing, but some of its imagery, and some of its ideas approach brilliance.

I loved the concept of the distorted photographs. I loved the little flourish with the fly on the screen, though it leads nowhere. There is a scene involving a horse on a ferry that is startlingly beautiful, and exciting, and frightening. The premise itself is enough to keep one's attention. Verbiski directs with a sure hand, maintaining a high level of tension and crafting some excellent scares.

So isn't all this deserving of at least a mild recommendation? Surely, a film with so many worthy elements cannot be an utter failure, right? Right, and I recommend the movie even as I bitterly resent it. Its technical accomplishments are significant, but it fails to satisfy on an emotional or cerebral level.

The problem lies entirely with the resolution. In my opinion, there are two ways to handle a story like this: one is to leave most everything unexplained, as Mark Pellington did beautifully in The Mothman Prophecies or, if one likes to live dangerously, to try to explain everything, tie it all together neatly. The Ring wants to have its both ways, selectively providing answers while leaving huge gaps in its exposition. What's more, its explanation isn't nearly as interesting as its build-up, turning a creepy mystery into a relatively run-of-the-mill genre flick.

I left the theater unfulfilled, upset, and more than a little angry. Still, I cannot emphasize The Ring's positive elements enough; it is a film with genuine imagination. I haven't seen the wildly popular Japanese film on which it is based, and I'm not ruling out the possibility that my growing disappointment with where the movie was headed tainted my impression of its final scenes. I plan to see it again, with fewer hopes and expectations and see how it holds up. In the meantime, don't put too much stock in the grade.