The Ring(2002)
Reviewed by Rosie
July 3, 2006
I saw "The Ring" when it first came out in 2002, and when I got admirable of MH's work, I was actually very surprised to see that he is the same actor who played Noah. I liked him as Noah and thought his performance was pretty good, even thought, some reviewers were not too kind to his performance, but I had to strongly disagree with them, I thought MH did a good job playing Noah. And of course now that I like MH's performance a lot, I should say I avoided watching "The Ring II" because he was not in it, LOL. But the truth is, just between us, LOL, I usually avoid sequels, nine out of ten times they are just redundant of the original movie.
OK, let's move on to the movie itself, LOL. The movie starts with two teenage girls, Katie (Amber Tamblyn) and Becca (Rachael Bella), home alone, watching TV, when Katie start to give bogus statistics about how bad TV is for the brain, and how much more brain cells one loses while exposing their brains to the supposed magnetic waves coming from the TV. To keep up, Becca explains about a videotape that if one watches he/she will die. She says that there are images of someone's nightmare on the tape, then an image of a woman comes up, smiling right at you, as if she can see you through the screen, and as soon as the tape is over you receive a phone call, as if someone knows you just watched the tape, and the voice says that, "you will die in seven days." Katie is all shook up and confesses to Becca that she has seen the tape with three other friends, last weekend, when they rented a place up in the mountain. She says that after watching the tape the phone ranged. Fast-forward a few minutes later, Katie is dead in an unusual and gross way and Becca has gone quite and distressed.
Now enter Katie's aunt Rachel (Naomi Watts), a newspaper reporter, who after talking to her sister at Katie's funeral, decides to find out what exactly happened to the girls. After some investigation she finds out that all four teenagers, who went camping the pervious weekend, have died within a few minutes of 10 pm that Friday night. So she goes to the cabin, finds the videotape, watches it, and gets the phone call. Now Rachel is all shook up and asks her ex-boyfriend and the father of her son Aidan (David Dorfman) to help her out with the tape mystery. The ex-boyfriend is of course Noah, who is conveniently enough, is an expert in everything videotape related, LOL. He asks Rachel to show her the tape, at first Rachel refuses, but Noah insistent, Rachel agrees, and promptly after the viewing is over, the phone rings. So now both Rachel and Noah have seen the tape and they supposedly have seven days to solve the mystery or else.
I mentioned that I was very surprised to find out that Noah of the "The Ring" and Ford of the "Torque" are played by the same actor. Well the reason is MH's good acting. He has changed not only his appearance from one movie to the next, but also his face expressions, demeanor, and body language has been changed from one movie to the next. Obviously one ends up seeing the character and not MH, and that is talent for you, LOL. Furthermore, MH is really great at displaying all his character's emotions and thoughts in his face and his voice, and in this movie, even though he had a supporting role, he had enough screen time, and the storyline allowed him, to showcase his many talents.
From the beginning when Noah is skeptic of Rachel's belief that the consequences of seeing the tape is great and when she hesitants to show the tape to Noah, one can easily see cynicism in Noah face, to the time that Noah realizes that Rachel was right and he has to race to help her solve the mystery before it is too late, the shock and panic in Noah's face is unmistakable. Or the time that he is talking to Aidan, respecting him as if he was a grownup, admitting that he thinks he might not be a good father to him, but that he does not want anyone else to be Aidan's father either, the love, and the confusion is so apparent in Noah's face. Or the time, that he goes to a mental health facility and asks to see a patient's record, and when they say he is not allowed to, he bluffs that, "I have been up there before!", to which one of the receptionist responds, "nice try, the records are in the basement!", the look of amusement in Noah's face is so cute. Or the time, when he thinks that they have solved the mystery and now they can relax a bit, as he says goodnight to Rachel, he jokes and asks her to not call her again if she wants to rent a movie, then kisses her and asks her to call him anytime, the caring that comes out in his voice is so very sweet. Or at the end when Noah realizes what is happening to him, again the terror, and the disbelief is remarkably displayed in this scene by MH's acting abilities.
I wish that I could remember my first impression of this movie, it has been a while, LOL, somehow I do not think that the movie scared me, I felt that it was more of a mystery then the horror movie to me. I loved how little by little, the viewer is given the clues of what is happening, and shown bit by bit, the origin of the images that were first displayed in the videotape. I truly enjoyed this movie.
Anyhow, nowadays I do not consider this movie a mystery or horror anymore, LOL, my buddies at MH.org have made this movie a bit of comedy for me, LOL. For example, someone, I am not sure who, posted that every time she watches the scene where Noah says "show it to me", other thoughts beside the videotape comes to her mind, LOL, "impure thoughts" of course, LOL. And some of MH.org members that are experts in everything fashionable, think that the scene where Noah tells Rachel, "you ain't much of a dresser", is an inside joke. From various pictures of MH's appearance at the premiers and award shows, they have concluded that MH himself prefers a more casual and laidback look, that he likes a relaxed and comfortable outfits over the more formal suit and tie attire, LOL, so they believe this scene was a reference to MH's own style in a sense, LOL.