Film
The supernatural and the Super-VHS go bump in the night in this surprisingly good horror, in which a haunted videotape picks off a few teens, gives a seven-day death countdown to Naomi Watts, and inspires a whole lot of horses to drown themselves. This is no lazy shock-fest: it's a well-conceived, well-executed thriller/mystery with excellent directing, acting, cinematography and story. And it's a remake of a Japanese film, which explains why it sounds like it was dreamt up on acid.
The Ring has at its centre an absorbing, ever-unravelling mystery, so the plot can't be done justice by any spoiler-avoiding synopsis such as this. After her niece drops dead, seemingly from fright alone, investigative reporter Rachel Keller (Watts) is asked by her sister to find out what happened. Finding a connection to an urban legend surrounding a videotape whose viewers die exactly seven days after watching, she tracks down the cursed cassette and, in predictable but still brow-slap-inducing lack of prudence, watches it. Then the phone rings, someone tells her she has seven days to live, and she realises that maybe, just maybe, she should have known better.
The cast do well to give life to the unchallenging characters. All that is really asked of Watts is a petrified staccato breathlessness, but looking scared is not as easy as it looks.
The directing is outstanding, and I don't mean just lots of horror tricks. There are a few cheap 'boo!' moments, yes, but not so many as to be irritating, and the film certainly doesn't rely on them for its effect. Rather, it develops detail in realising the characters' situations, for the real terror in the film comes from their feelings: their claustrophobia; their separation; their fear.
So The Ring really is rather good. Sure, it has its faults. It's no cinematic masterpiece, but it's an interesting story, beautifully directed. It is a subtle thriller, with the tension rising constantly throughout. And unless too much Lovecraft has left your sense of fear forever numbed, it's a pretty scary film as well.
Haunted videotapes? This would never have happened with Betamax. Here's my advice: see this one at the cinema. I have a feeling that renting it would be a very, very bad idea.
This, Disney's 42nd animated offering, finds itself in a quandary. Disney's traditional oeuvre has been overtaken by their computer-generated films, such as Toy Story and Monsters Inc. Whereas the latter category tends to specialise in quick-witted banter, zippy storylines and are possessed of a certain knowingness, the animated films usually stick to a more time-honoured method of storytelling.
Treasure Planet, an adaptation of Stevenson's pirate yarn, thus tries to make itself hipper than it really is, in an attempt to catch up lost ground. Hence the story takes place in space. Jim Hawkins is now a skateboard-punk good-for-nothing, John Silver is a one-legged cyborg and Martin Short manages to pull off the (not inconsiderable) task of voicing a character even more instantly irritating than his good self. This is mere window-dressing; the film does nothing interesting with the change of locale.
All in all, a misguided pitch to the very group of people notorious for wishing to distance themselves as far as possible from the very notion that they ever liked cartoons: teenage boys. Can you imagine one of a group of 13-year old skater-punks getting up and saying, "Hey guys, there's this swell new Disney film where this dude goes hunting for treasure and instead finds out the values of friendship and loyalty. And he's got a SKATEBOARD!" Puh-leez, give them some credit.
What about the kids? You know, the ones that Disney used to make films for? They won't get many of the jokes, and, because the film panders to the adolescent mindset at the expense of any depth of characterisation, they won't care - the sentimentality at the heart of all Disney films just doesn't ring true when it's given this insincere treatment.
Disney movies used to enchant. Treasure Planet desperately tries to make you come out of the cinema wanting to brandish a sabre and shout "Avast there landlubber!" at unsuspecting passers-by. It is far more likely to send you scurrying back to The Lion King.
20th Feb 2003