Rings

It plays better than it reviews — the watch lands harder than the write-ups suggest.

• “This offshoot is essentially a well-produced, easily accessed B-movie. Still, it wouldn’t kill you to watch it, and it does more than expected to reinvent its particular wheel.”

  Mike McCahill, The Guardian · 60

• “As a threequel, Rings suffers a bit from franchise fatigue. It tries to fix that by giving viewers an even deeper look at the mythology of Samara and the videotape, with mixed results.”

  Christian Holub, Entertainment Weekly · 58

• “This film doesn’t find any fresh ways to make you jump out of your seat. Ms. Lutz is appealing, though, and fans of the franchise will probably be pleased with the elaboration. Too many horror sequels are content merely to recycle what worked the first time.”

  Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times · 50

• “Rings doesn’t end up doing much with its fresh ideas. Instead, it transforms into a kind of remake of a remake, borrowing not just the washed-out look of Verbinski’s movie—lots of blue hues and overcast skies—but also its basic plot structure, which was itself lifted from the Japanese original.”

  A.A. Dowd , The A.V. Club · 42

• “Rings finds a couple of nice, if inconsequential, little chills.”

  John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter · 40