Overloaded plot dooms ‘The Ring’ Remake of Japanese hit film provides chills, but never explains premise

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In theaters

THE RING, directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ehren Kruger, based on the novel by Koji Suzuki, 115 minutes, rated PG-13.

Gore Verbinski’s “The Ring” asks audiences to imagine a videotape the contents of which are so terrifying, viewing the footage will kill you within seven days of watching it.

Ring a bell?

It might. “The Ring” is based on Hideo Nakata’s hugely popular 1998 Japanese film, “Ringu,” which follows the same premise – death by video within seven days – and which has since generated a sequel, a prequel, a comic book, a television series and a Korean remake by Dong-bin Kim titled “Ring Virus.”

The title of that film, curiously enough, seems to be responsible for inspiring last month’s megabomb, “feardotcom,” a movie about a Web site that, once viewed, infects you with an Ebola-like virus that leaves you dead from your own fears within 48 hours.

Clearly, pop culture is exploring the idea that televisions and computers are vehicles of death, which isn’t far from the truth if you consider what’s dying is pop culture itself.

The film, from a script Ehren Kruger based on Koji Suzuki’s novel, is like a Rubik’s cube without the payoff.

Initially it’s engaging and fun, recalling in its opening moments the urban legends of the “Scream” series. But by the time the last reel has unraveled, so has the movie, whose endless puzzles keep accumulating until the ideas that once fueled them have turned on themselves.

In the movie, Naomi Watts, of “Mulholland Drive” fame, is Rachel Keller, a Seattle-based newspaper reporter whose niece and three friends die after viewing a disturbing videotape, which Rachel finds (too easily) at a lodge in the Washington woods (don’t ask) and watches herself.

The videotape, a surrealist’s dream, is a scratchy, black-and-white nightmare of freaked-out horses, creeping centipedes, old women in mirrors, crumbling wells and ladders that climb to nowhere. After receiving a telephone call from a stranger telling her she has a week to live, Rachel is off and sleuthing, employing her former boyfriend (Martin Henderson) to help her solve the mounting mystery.

What ensues has its moments, such as a genuinely unnerving scene in which a spooked horse goes nuts on a ferry or when a dead girl pulls herself through a television set to stalk her next victim, but there aren’t enough of those moments to give the film a sustained series of jolts and, worse, the movie is ultimately unable to adequately explain the videotape and its contents, which unhinges it.

Watts has screen presence to spare, but for a woman whose death is imminent, she plays the part awfully coolly. So does David Dorfman as Rachel’s psychic son, Aidan, an anemic 6-year-old boy who comes off like the life-size, windup version of Haley Joel Osment. Unfortunately, his vivid drawings of dark rings and dead people are never as effective as the fierce scribblings that brought superior horror movies like “The Changeling” to life.

Grade: C

On video and DVD

JASON X, directed by Jim Isaac, written by Todd Farmer, 93 minutes, rated R.

Jim Isaac’s “Jason X” is the 10th film in the “Friday the 13th” franchise, which means that those looking to rent it are either doing so because the previous nine films have somehow left them wanting more, or because – with that title – they’ll think they rented soft-core porn.

In a way they have.

This time out, the machete-loving Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) is turned into a cryogenically frozen space cadet who awakens in the year 2455 to go on a murderous rampage. That he does so on a spaceship filled with supermodels posing as barely clad scientists might sound like campy fun – think “Alien” by way of Hooters – but, go figure, it isn’t.

There is one clever bit in which a character’s face gets frozen in liquid hydrogen and then smashed to bits on the edge of a countertop, but since that scene is followed immediately by the rather pedestrian slashing of a cross-dresser in a pink teddy, the high, you can imagine, isn’t sustained.

What’s interesting about “Jason X” is that even its score seems bored with 22 years of Jason’s antics. When he throws himself into the murder of yet another unsuspecting coed, the music remains detached, oddly flat.

Didn’t she – and we – deserve a heavy metal riff?

Grade: BOMB

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores, starting alphabetically with the most current releases.

E.T.: 20th Anniversary Edition ? A

Mr. Deeds ? D

Insomnia ? A

Life or Something Like It ? B-

Scooby-Doo ? C-

Windtalkers ? C-

Big Trouble ? D

Enough ? C-

Jason X ? Bomb

Brotherhood of the Wolf ? B

The Scorpion King ? B

Enigma ? C

Monsoon Wedding ? A-

Murder by Numbers ? C

Death to Smoochy ? B+

40 Days and 40 Nights ? C-

Monsters, Inc. ? A-

Panic Room ? B

Changing Lanes ? B

Count of Monte Cristo ? B+

Frailty ? C-

Blade II ? B+

High Crimes ? C

Queen of the Damned ? C-

Iris ? B

Joe Somebody ? D

The Rookie ? A-

The Sweetest Thing ? D+

We Were Soldiers ? B+

Birthday Girl ? B

The Business of Strangers ? B

Clockstoppers ? C

In the Bedroom ? A

The New Guy ? D

Showtime ? C+

Deuces Wild ? D-

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ? B+

Collateral Damage ? D

Dragonfly ? D

Resident Evil ? C-

Crossroads ? C-

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist: B-

The Time Machine ? D-

Amelie ? A

John Q. ? C-

Pinero ? B

Charlotte Gray ? B+

Hart’s War ? B

The Royal Tenenbaums ? B+

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ? B+

Shallow Hal ? C

A Beautiful Mind ? B

Gosford Park ? B+

I Am Sam ? C

The Majestic ? D-

Max Keeble’s Big Move ? B

Orange County ? C-

The Shipping News ? C

Rollerball ? F

Black Hawk Down ? B

Kate & Leopold ? C+

Monster’s Ball ? A

The Mothman Prophecies ? C

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ? B 3/4

Sidewalks of New York ? B-

Lantana ? A

Vanilla Sky ? B+

Corky Romano ? D-

From Hell ? C

The Others ? B+

Snow Dogs ? B-

Ocean’s Eleven ? B

Waking Life ? A

Ali ? B+

Not Another Teen Movie ? C-

Behind Enemy Lines ? C-

No Man’s Land ? A

Black Knight ? F

The Deep End ? A

Domestic Disturbance ? C

The Man Who Wasn’t There ? B+

Mulholland Drive ? A

Spy Game ? C+

Bandits ? D

13 Ghosts ? F