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Title: Disappointing and pointless remake of horror classic
Review: Whilst Verbinski's remake of Nakata's classic is reasonably faithful (albeit mixing in few anachronistic elements from Ring 2 and Ring 0) it clearly lacks the visceral impact of the original.Firstly, switching the locale from Japan to Seattle greatly dilutes the atmosphere and rather diminishes the overall effect. Furthermore, Verbinski has pasted in a number of irrelevant scenes, which are little more than an irritating distraction, whilst skipping over some of the more atmospheric scenes from the original.Sure the movie is still an effective and thought-provoking horror, but that is entirely due to the magnificence of the original.Even the famous shock ending seems rushed here and feels spoiled.I'm afraid this merely reinforces my view that remakes are, almost without exception, (John Carpenter's The Thing being the exception) inferior to the original.
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