RINGS is the belated third entry in THE RING franchise, the one that started with the Naomi Watts remake all those years ago. A long time has passed since the first sequel, but watching this you wonder why they went back to it after all those years. Other than a few updates to technology, with the use of mobile phones and laptops, this is very much business as usual and a weak retread of the first film (itself a weak retread of the Japanese original, RINGU). Uninteresting actors play annoying characters, running around and screaming a lot at CGI apparitions and the like; there's no real sense of menace, unless you're easily influenced by obvious jump scares and the like. The mystery plot is equally tedious given that this is old ground that didn't need re-covering. Hollywood horror-lite, if you will.

Samara is back. She takes down a plane killing her latest victim Carter. Two years later, college professor Gabriel Brown (Johnny Galecki) buys Carter's VCR with his supernatural tape. Julia comes looking for her missing boyfriend Holt. She finds that Holt's professor Gabriel has been experimenting with the videotape.

The 2002 American remake original has a nice creepy sense, the greatness of Naomi Watts, and a new horror icon in Samara. This is a shadow of its former self. It is dark and brooding without any creepiness. The shock is gone and so are any scares at all. The young cast is nothing more than cannon fodder. It attempts to expand the premise but it's a clunky convoluted attempt. This is a sad failure.

People watch a VHS tape and 7 days later they die, unless they make a copy and have someone else watch it...instructions not included, but somehow everyone knows it. Our infamous tape or a copy that no one wants to destroy, makes its way into the hands of Vince Gabriel (Johnny Galecki) a college professor who teaches biology doing experiments that involve the soul and afterlife. Through a series of circumstances, Julie (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz- 4 names dead Catholic give away) sees the tape and gets a connection to the girl in the tape who we discover is Samara Morgan (contortionist Bonnie Morgan). We discover her past.

I guess the film had to go there. We discovered who Freddie was after a few films. The problem I had was the predictability, down to the individual jump scares, like when Julie was peeking through a hole. You knew it was coming. Of course I would have complained about a missed opportunity had they not done it. A so-so sequel.

Guide: no swearing, near sex, no nudity.