Reception
In order to advertise The Ring, many promotional websites were formed featuring the characters and places in the film. The film was financially successful; the box office gross actually increased from its 1st weekend to its 2nd, as the initial success led DreamWorks to roll the film into 700 additional theaters. The Ring made $8.3 million in its first two weeks in Japan, compared to Ring's $6.6 million total box-office gross. The success of The Ring opened the way for American remakes of several other Japanese horror films, including The Grudge and Dark Water. A sequel, The Ring Two, was released in North American theaters on March 18, 2005. It was directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of Ring.
The Ring was met with generally positive reviews from film critics, receiving 72% favorable reviews out of 167 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and a Metacritic score of 57/100 (mixed or average) from 36 reviews. On the television program Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper gave the film "Thumbs Up" and said it was very gripping and scary despite some minor unanswered questions. Roger Ebert gave the film "Thumbs Down" and felt it was boring and "borderline ridiculous"; he also disliked the extended, detailed ending. IGN’s Jeremy Conrad praised the movie for its atmospheric set up and cinematography, and said that “there are 'disturbing images'… but the film doesn't really rely on gore to deliver the scares. … The Ring relies on atmosphere and story to deliver the jumps, not someone being cleaved in half by a glass door.” (referencing a scene from Thirteen Ghosts) Film Threat's Jim Agnew called it “dark, disturbing and original throughout. You know that you’re going to see something a little different than your usual studio crap.” Verbinski was praised for slowly revealing the plot while keeping the audience interested, “the twists keep on coming, and Verbinski shows a fine-tuned gift for calibrating and manipulating viewer expectations.”
Despite the praise given to Verbinski’s direction, critics railed the characters as being weak. The Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum said that the film was “an utter waste of Watts… perhaps because the script didn’t bother to give her a character,” whereas other critics such as William Arnold from Seattle Post-Intelligencer said the opposite: “she projects intelligence, determination and resourcefulness that carry the movie nicely.” Many critics regarded Dorfman’s character as a "creepy-child" “Sixth Sense cliché.” A large sum of critics, like Miami Herald’s Rene Rodriguez and USA Today’s Claudia Puig found themselves confused and thought that by the end of the movie “ still doesn't make much sense.”
The movie was number 20 on the cable channel Bravo's list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Bloody Disgusting ranked the film sixth in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "The Ring was not only the first American “J-Horror” remake out of the gate; it also still stands as the best."
Read more about this topic: The Ring (2002 film)
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“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
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“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)