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The Ring (2002)
So have you heard the one about the videotape where you die seven days after you watch it? No it isn’t a new late fee ploy by Blockbuster. It’s the great premise for the entertaining new horror movie The Ring. After you watch this eerie video your phone rings. A raspy voice on the other end tells you that you have seven days, then, one week later to the minute, you die. How cool is that?
Seattle reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) learns of this urban legend at the funeral of her teenage niece, who died suddenly and mysteriously. Through research she observes that her niece’s three friends all died at the same hour on the same day, though through different circumstances. She recovers pictures of the four of them at a campsite, where they had watched the video, except their faces are blurred in pictures taken after they had watched the tape.
The Ring has its shares of creepy scares but midway in it makes an unexpected turn. Rachel, being the good journalist she is, goes to the camp and pops in the dreaded videotape. She watches it and makes us watch it too! Afterwards, working against the death clock here, she tries piecing together clues left on in the tape’s grisly and stark images to solve the mystery of who is behind it. It’s at this moment that The Ring turns into an extended beyond-the-grave episode of Law & Order.
As with most mysteries, the intrigue and questions are more interesting than the eventual answers. As Rachel’s investigation picks up steam we start to lose interest. Of course it wouldn’t be a supernatural thriller these days without a Sixth Sense-like twerpy kid. This one features Rachel’s son (who looks like the lost Culkin child) who has premonitions of death.
Watts, who wowed critics with her breakout role as the good girl/bad girl in Mullholland Drive, is luminescent as a leading lady. Watts can deliver parts passion, fright, curiosity and concern without blinking an eyelash. She is an exciting actress to see develop.
The Ring is directed with a vibrant sense of foreboding by Gore Verbinski (The Mexican). He delivers some definite cover-your-eyes moments but also creates a wonderful atmosphere of fear throughout with illuminating visuals. There is an absence of gore and any real violence, just an emphasis on intense atmosphere like what the classic horror films would achieve.
The scares that The Ring can conjure are genuine and the film has a nightmarish undertone to it. This Hollywood remake of the Japanese cult classic can stand on its own legs with confidence, even with an overextended ending that you may require initiating another person to explain to you. So, anyone want to watch a killer movie?
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Bourne Identity (2002)
If you were in a fight who would you want to back you up? Ben Affleck has some heft. He has taken on a meteor, lesbians and even a crazed Sandra Bullock. Or maybe you’d take Matt Damon. “Wait, the same Matt Damon who stars in all those overly-serious period piece dramas?” you might reasonably ask. Well the very same Damon proves himself quite feasible as a thriller hero in The Bourne Identity and might just open a few new doors for himself – in between those overly-serious period piece films.
The flick starts off with a fishing vessel pulling a floating Matt Damon out of the Mediterranean. He has two bullets in his back; a Swiss account number embedded in his hip and no idea who he is or where he came from. He journeys to a Zurich bank where he uses the account number to unlock a safety deposit box. Inside he uncovers a series of different passports, stacks of all kinds of currency and a loaded gun. The box does however yield a name in Paris, Jason Bourne. He offers Marie (Franka Potente) a slew of dollars if she’ll transport him out of the country to where he can find his true identity and flee any police pursuits. It seems Bourne’s previous handlers do know his identity but are hurrying to dispatch other European assassins to make sure that no one else does. They’ve posted pictures of Bourne and Marie for any of their many eyes and ears to report back on.
Damon does begin to recover certain memories and reflexes. Early on he dispatches two Zurich police officers in a park quite handily but still remains clueless to his identity. Once in Paris Damon and Potente become an inseparable team trying to elude snipers, police, and any sort of danger while attempting to fit the puzzle pieces together. The film then descends into a series of great chase scenes and action pieces with bits of story in between. We as an audience root for Damon’s triumph, even if he may well truly be a cold-blooded killer.
The Bourne Identity is a loose translation of the Robert Ludlum spy novel of the same name. The 1980 Cold War novel has been retooled to where the bad guys aren’t Ruskies but CIA bureaucrats (Chris Cooper and Brian Cox) wanting to save face. But in today’s age I think most people would actually wish that the CIA is as powerful and technological advanced as portrayed in the movie.
Damon is a stranger to the action ropes. He’s more accustomed to ride pretty horses in picturesque Texas or gaily kill people in picturesque Italy. While Affleck’s saved the world, like, three times in cinema already Damon has been playing golf. You get the idea. That’s what makes it so surprising how capable Damon is in this unfamiliar territory. He scales walls, he drives a stick shift through a high speed car chase and man does this guy know kung-fu. You just better not have any ball point pens lying around. Run Damon run!
Franka Potente, is there a lovelier woman in the world than you, of the fire head variety in Run Lola Run? She is more than just a “romantic interest” even if that’s the lot she’s been given. She’s a surprising choice to coincide with Damon but a gamble that works marvelously. Hey, it bought my ticket. The chemistry between Potente and Damon doesn’t exactly speak of sparks but they look beautiful onscreen alongside each other.
Doug Liman is the director who put the swinger in Swingers baby. He also directed 1999’s most free-spirited thrill ride Go, so the man knows how to stretch a budget and propel an exhilarating vicarious feeling off the screen. The Bourne Identity is Liman’s first studio backed adventure and he should make his financial parents proud. He has a direct sense of mood and scale, setting the entire film amongst the wonderful backdrop of European cities. The look of the film is great, from the cool colors, the wet snow, to the luscious locales.
The film actually tries to shoehorn more profanity into a PG-13 movie than might be allowed. Potente, while in a hairy situation, will often keep muttering German profanities. After like the 30th time it becomes almost comical that studio execs or the MPAA would just let it slip through just because it wasn’t in English.
Damon eventually does come to learn of his former self as a trained CIA assassin and, as with all memory-recovery movies where the person’s previous life was dubious; they decide to be a better human being. If only more people would lose their memories.
The Bourne Identity is a slick spy caper with arresting visuals and some great propulsive action sequences, in particular a standout car chase through the back streets of Paris. Liman has crafted an intelligent spy thriller for the post Cold War era that makes perfect use of an anti-hero and his conflicts of memory.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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