Lets just put it this way. Horror sequels get way way worse than this. It wasn't a massive dissapointment as my expectations were low; but it still wasn't particularly entertaining and dragged on without aim or purpose and contiously eluded any sort of real plot or reasoning.

But Samara popping out of a bodybag [which, ironically, plagarised The Grudge big time, as this whole picture did a lot actually] was creepy buisness.

I dunno; I guess it was just a little aimless - Aiden is a living testament as to why child actors suck ass. Dakota Fanning is the only good child actress for so so long. Naomi Watts seems to be a star-by-association these days; her buzz has died down and projects like The Ring Two aren't doing much to jumpstart a new leg of her career.

It was all a bit. Meh.
I mean i remember one shot lingered for like 10 minutes on a dude on the phone, and the big scare? The door closing.
No floating body, no creepy girl crawling out of the bathroom. A door closing.

That pretty much sums up The Ring Two. It really didn't know how to scare, but the character of Samara was able to do that on her own; god knows if they didn't have such a creepy ghost this film would have been awful.
But i do agree, painting Samara as this girl who "just wants a mommy" really blunts the horror bat; the first film painted her as basically pure, unfiltered evil. This one painted her as a victim to an unresponsive world; a circumstance of her upbringing and so forth.

Its certainly not Scream 2, but it sure as hell is better than Book of Shadows

C

I guess I am one of the very few that loved this film. THE RING is one of my top ten favorite films and the sequel was my most anticipated film of the year. I went into it and wasn't disappointed, just treated to a completely different film than the first. I really liked the story and though Naomi Watts gave a brilliant performance.

8/10 (A-)

C. Saw only the unrated version. Nowhere near The Ring (A-), but least it was better than Ringu (D). Poor choice of a director, he just isn't very good. Even if this movie is reviewed as a drama (since it is not a horror film), it's still not a very compelling one as it wastes both Naomi Watts and Sissy Spacek from delivering performances of their caliber.

A big fat D-from me. I hated it. I'm tempted to give it F. I don't want to point out everything wrong with it right now. Basicly nothing new in this film, nothing suspensful really at all. Samara doesn't appear all much, and when she does its butchery. In the first one she was almost a real person, in this shes just a demented jerky misfigurment. The tape is even barely in it. Its just the boy being possesed with Samara's spirit, going crazy, its very very cut-rate. No scares either. I agree that it just adds nothing at all to Ring 1.

Ugh.

I should've seen this in theaters.

The only reason why I say this though is because of the Unrated DVD. The picture quality of the film looks horrible. You can tell where they edited back in sequences that they took out. They look all grainy, especially the scene towards the beginning of the film where they are at the flea market of sorts. If I am correct about the new footage being grainy, that sequence couldn't have last more than three minutes in the theatrical release. Here it's 10, but feels more like 60. It just goes on and on. The same can be said for the rest of the movie. However, I do like the fact that they tried to take it in a more psychological direction. That saying though, it's boring as hell and obsurd. Do I even have to mention the Deer sequence? That is one of the most unintentionally funny scenes I have seen all year. On the somewhat bright side, I have to admit that one of the few things I did like the ending, but in a 128 minute cut of film, that's just nowhere near being enough.

D+

I decided to watch this tonight after the discussion over the original's WOM. And now I can see why this did so poorly.

Basically, this is a huge disappointment. After the fantastic first film, and its open ending, I was expecting at least a decent sequel. But after it was released, and I caught wind of the terrible WOM, I decided to wait to watch it. And it took me over a year to get around to it. Well, I'm glad I didn't waste my money. Pretty much, I didn't like it.

That's not to say the film is a complete waste. There are some pretty cool shots here (the scene in the bathroom with all the water, and also when Samara is creepily climbing up the well) and Naomi Watts is pretty good, as always. Her final line is the best of the movie, just because it expressed my feeling at the time. The opening scene is probably the most intriguing in the film, mostly because it's the only one that actually deals with the friggin' videotape. Like andaroo posted a few pages back, if the story had focused on the tale of these teenagers passing the tape around, telling each other to make copies, it could have been interesting. But no, after that opening scene - which, I guess, only serves the purpose of reintroducing the story - it is completely discarded. It's too bad; there's a good movie stemming from that idea.

But the rest of the film is a mess. The kid is even more irritating this time - if that's even possible - mainly because he gets more screen time, I guess. The entire plot with him being possessed didn't interest me at all (reeks of unoriginality) and didn't make sense in the context of the first. All the 'rules' they set up in the first one are just blatantly ignored in this one, in order to make this story work. But it doesn't work. The supporting characters are introduced and dispatched of in record time. The pace wavers incredibly, sometimes dragging, sometimes flying by. The visuals are kinda cool, but the deer attack scene was laughably bad. Not just the horrible CGI, but the entire idea. Just bad. The problem with this film is not the directing, but the script. It's just poor.

So, all in all, I would have to say that this is a typical sequel in that it falls short of its predecessor. Far, far short. I loved the original; it's one of my favorite horror films. Critiquing the sequel as a horror film is wrong, since it has very little horror elements. But it's very flawed as a drama also. It's just a very flawed film. It's too bad; there was much potential here after the ending of the first, and it was ignored completely. Ah well.

What he said.

The Ring Two fails in every way the first one succeeded. The first was original, creepy...genuinely creepy...and very memorable. The sequel is none of those. It's not even fake creepy. If this movie hadn't followed The Ring, it might've been a nice character study. But it ignores almost everything from the first. As Trixster said, it's not at fault of the cirector. There were some cool thing he did with this movie. The idea and screenplay overall sucked. In fact, Trixster said everything I'm thinking, but much more eloquently. C-

To this day I haven't seen the movie despite the original being one of my ten all-time favorite horror films. I just heard SO much bad buzz about it..I don't even want to bother and ruin my experience of the perfect first part.

Yes, it truly is terrible.

The Exorcist II is still worse though . Nothing will ever top that, ever. I would love to see your reaction to that movie Lecter, seeing how you even hated the original.

I still think it's funny reading this thread and seeing how many people equate different with terrible. 'It's not The Ring! That's bad!'

It is bad. That doesn't mean the movie is bad, but the response will be bad. It was a fairly well-made movie, Hideo Makata did some cool thing, and voerall it was a solid production. But...it almost completely ignored the first. Rules were set-up in the first, and they were seemingly ignored. As a stand-alone movie, it's pretty interesting. But it has the unfortunate little fact that it is in fact a sequel.