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The Ring Two (2005)
Has its moments, but is generally disappointing.
This is one of those movies that rides through to box-office success based on the hype generated by the previous installment. The Ring was a good movie. It was visually stunning and very unsettling. The Ring Two felt like it was trying to be as good as The Ring, but the end result is only an okay movie.
First -- it wasn't scary. I'm not scared easily by movies, but the first scared me more than any movie ever has. I was maybe slightly on edge for about 5 minutes of this movie, total. And not even 5 consecutive minutes. The problem could be that it uses the exact same scare tactics as the first, and they're only scary the first time. The one scene that I found to be somewhat unsettling -- the "deer scene" for those who have seen the movie -- was stretched entirely too long, until it became slightly ridiculous and even laughable.
I did not like the use of CGI in this film. Part of the beauty of the first film was that CGI was used sparingly to enhance the realism of the scene, not to act on its own as something that should scare the viewer. For me, it simply wasn't believable enough to be scary. The first one was scary because everything felt real. In a less realistic movie, such as a science fiction or fantasy film, CGI's less-than-real appearance can be overlooked since none of it looks very real to begin with, but in a film like this, realism is very important, and a little too much CGI is used for it to feel real enough.
If you're very easily scared and want a mellow horror movie, this is a "safe" movie for you. But if you loved the first for it's beautiful cinematography and realistic, frightening atmosphere, you'll be disappointed by this sequel.
Durango Kids (1999)
Would rather have gotten free breadsticks.
To put it bluntly, this movie was terrible.
There are a vast number of "excuses" that people use to say that it wasn't so bad. It is a kids' movie. It stars young actors. It was filmed on a low budget. Even considering these circumstances, it was a dreadful movie. I've seen movies with a much lower budget and much younger actors, intended for a much younger audience, end up much more entertaining than this.
This movie was made with very little passion. It seems that the director knew from the beginning that he was going to make an amateur, generic, cliché film, and didn't try to do anything beyond that. And judging by the surnames of a few of the actors, I get the feeling that he cast his family members in roles; it wouldn't surprise me if he had given them out as birthday presents.
In this film so many tired, over-used elements were re-used shamelessly. There are one too many slime/manure/teasing jokes, and the entire plot centers around a bunch of pre-teens with the help of their (surprisingly old-looking) 8th grade big brother, stopping their "evil principal" from changing history. So these kids go back in time to prevent a crime from being committed.
This movie had so many chances to be good, but didn't take any of them. It's a great example of extremely lazy directing. (Take the "train scene," for example, each of the extras does exactly the same thing, faces the same direction, and does nothing.) Seriously, a movie has to TRY to be this bad. I actually got it for free on DVD when I bought a pizza. And the DVD didn't even contain subtitles.
I feel like the director probably said to his assistant director, "Nah, you can fake that, no one will notice," WAY too many times in this film.
Predictable, immature, simple, badly acted, badly written. (And I won't even start about this movie's sad, sad attempt at special effects.) The only positive is that maybe very young children will enjoy it, if they don't get lost in the vague plot. ....Maybe.