The Ring Two

Hideo Nakata, director of the Japanese originals Ringu and Ringu 2 takes the helm from Gore Verbinski for the American sequel after the very successful The Ring a couple of years ago. I really liked The Ring, but I accepted it as just a horror story that worked without the classic jumps and sounds that are all over the new generation of horror movies, and it was also smart, with a great ending.

Now in The Ring Two, Naomi Watts is back as Rachel, who had defeated the ghost of Samara by making a copy of the damned tape, saving her son Aidan (David Dorfman) and herself from dying after 7 days of having watched the taped. Six months have passed and they have left Seattle and are now leaving in Astoria, Oregon, a place where nothing happens until the tape reappears in the hands some kids who end up killed (or scared to death) by Samara.
After some discoverings, Rachel finds out that Samara wants to get into the body of Aidan so she can be free again, so Rachel must find out how to stop her.
Personal note here, because I totally didn't know that Rachel was Aidan's mother. He always called her 'Rachel" in the first movie and there was never mention of a father or anything, so I was assuming that she was his aunt or something. Weird stuff, cause when she asks him to call her "mom" in this one I was like, "What?".

What I like about the movie is that Nakata kept the same style that Verbinski used (though I guess Verbinski did the same, taking it from Ringu) in The Ring, keeping the story moving by making us, and the characters, figure out what's going on, instead of turning up the volume and making us jump at every cheap chance. I also liked how the scenes in the tape continue to work and are used in new ways and for more discoverings.

What I don't like is a lot, starting with the kid. Aidan was really creepy in The Ring, not telling what he knew and all that stuff, and it worked great that time, but that doesn't work now. He knows what happened to them before, so he's not creepy anymore, he's just acting like an idiot by not saying anything. Also, there's a scene which was just pure laughs towards the end and it wasn't meant to be like that, but knowing him from the first one and how the character is, they can't expect us to take it seriously.
I also have problems with the secondary characters, because they are totally useless in subplots that do nothing for the main story. Sissy Spacek's appearance is good though, despite being way too short.
Now my biggest problem is how the stuff happens. They invented too much new stuff, and have forgotten almost completely about the Tape, which was what made the movies in the first place. There's also not a mention or single use of the the tweaked faces in the pictures or the dying after a week deal (the latter only at the very beginning but not by the main characters).

Overall, it's not a better movie than The Ring, and I don't like a lot of it, but for some reason I ended up liking it anyway. I guess because of Naomi Watts, as she once again puts a great performance, and the story, despite the many new stuff, is still interesting and smart.