Reviews

This was not a terrible movie. I'm not sorry I saw it. And I had to see it--having liked The Ring very much (and I seem to be the only one alive who thinks it was as good or maybe better than Ringu), I was going to see this sequel in any event.

But I was disappointed. The Ring centered around the vehicle of the video and what happened to those who saw it. That was disposed of (literally) early in the movie (after an opening sequence in which the effect of seeing the video--or, specifically, of how to avoid dying after seeing it--was significantly changed from the first). The result is that the movie was basically about an evil presence who seeks to possess a child. That's fine, but not especially unusual.

I kept asking myself why Naomi Watts kept leaving her kid alone, or with someone who didn't know what was going on, when I would have expected her to cling to him as much as possible. And that scene with the deer--it was very scary and well done, but the point (so to speak) wasn't clear, at least to me.

Aside from the two main characters, no other characters were developed at all. When her hunky boss first shows up, it seemed as if they would develop some kind of love interest, or at least involve him in the plot some more--moving from being suspicious of her to being drawn into it, or something. But from the time we meet him until the time he dies, we know very little about him, and he doesn't have much to do except to be a good guy who wants to help but thinks Naomi Watts may be nuts and that she may be hurting her son.

Samara seems to be able to do all sorts of bad things now that she didn't do before. She gets around a lot, and apparently can make people do what she wants--like making the psychiatrist kill herself. If this had been explained, it would have been easier to take. (Maybe burning the video unleashed her powers or something...even something hokey like that...but at least try to explain it).

I really had the impression that the movie had been heavily edited and that large pieces of plot disappeared as a result.

David Dorfman was great. Naomi Watts seemed to sleep-walk through her role. And no one else had much of a chance to do much of anything. Sissy Spacek looks much better with dark, stringy hair, though. Somehow, it's a look that works for her.

This movie is modest, and certainly flawed in some respects, but overall very impressive, and very disturbing. I cannot speak to how accurately it depicted Colombia, or Medellin in particular. What struck me was that Fernando, brooding and cynical in his middle years (not "elderly"--please!), often bringing up his own wish to die, is at first reinvigorated by his relationship with Alexis--young, enthusiastic, seemingly almost angelic--but completely absorbed into the culture of death that surrounds him.

Fernando is disturbed by the anger and the callous, nonchalant attitude toward death and killing that he encounters everywhere he goes, and even in Alexis. But he is less disturbed by it as time goes by. And at times Alexis kills on his Fernando's behalf--for instance, shooting a neighbor about whom Fernando complains because the neighbor's late-night drumming keeps him awake at night. As Alexis's companion, Fernando himself is drawn into this culture of death. And at times, his own anger and his inability to keep quiet about his contempt for many of the people he encounters incite the situations that result in Alexis killing "for" him. This, to me, was a particularly compelling aspect of this film--the way in which Fernando, shocked and disgusted by the death and killing that surrounds him, becomes so much a part of it--and, at times, is even exhilarated by it, even as he sees the moral dilemma his "participation" in it represents for him.

When Fernando shoots an injured, suffering dog as an act of mercy--yet something which Alexis, so callous about killing people, cannot bring himself to do--he (Fernando) is so bitter and upset that he threatens to take his own life. When Alexis wrestles the gun from Fernando, the gun is lost; Alexis loses his protection and is soon shot and killed. By saving Fernando from himself, Alexis loses his own life.

Fernando later meets Wilmar, another teenager who at first seems so sweet and innocent that it seems almost jarring (to me, at least), when he later removes his gun. And, yes, it is a bit soap-opera-ish to learn later that it is Wilmar who had shot and killed Alexis, but when he explains to Fernando--who is ready to kill Wilmar when he learns that Wilmar is the killer--why he had killed Alexis, his answer seems so simple, and so devoid of emotion, that it is truly disarming--literally, in fact.

As disdainful as Fernando is of his countrymen, and as aloof of the anger, callousness and death around him that he pretends to be, in his attempt to regain his own life and happiness, he finds himself more and more a part of it. To me, that is what is so artfully, even masterfully, shown in this film. That is what makes it moving and disturbing.

And I thought the acting rocked.

Also, I cannot understand comments about how this movie is filled with gay sex scenes. There is a little bit of embracing, a little kissing, a few scenes of Fernando lying in bed with Alexis and/or Wilmar, and a lot of scenes of Fernando walking around town with one or the other of them.

I do agree that the English subtitles are pretty awful. My Spanish isn't good enough to have been able to do without the subtitles completely, but it is good enough to realize how much dialogue was missed, or poorly translated.