Grade: D+

Verdict: Naomi Watts' presence and instincts help raise the movie ever so slightly, but not enough.

Details: Starring Naomi Watts. Directed by Gore Verbinski. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, disturbing images, language and some drug references. 115 minutes.

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for The Ring

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: "The Ring," about a videotape that kills people, is so full of inconsistencies and plot holes that I stumbled from a recent screening with few answers, and a ton of questions:

--If the tape really is a famous urban legend, as the beginning of the movie states, how does a teenage girl (Amber Tamblyn) watch it with her friends without having heard about it, and end up dead?

--Then if her newspaper reporter aunt, Rachel (Naomi Watts), suspects that the tape kills people, why does she watch it? (This one, I know the answer to: She's a horror flick heroine, so she has to put herself in danger.)

--Once Rachel gets a breathy phone call, warning her that she's going to die within seven days of watching the video, why would she inflict the tape on her friend Noah (Martin Henderson) and doom him? (Wait, I know the answer to this one, too: This is one of those movies in which the plot is pushed along by stupid people doing stupid things.)

--And why, after accidentally watching the tape, does Rachel's son, Aidan (David Dorfman), start receiving telepathic messages from a mysterious little girl who's been dumped down a well? Did he always have this talent, or has he simply seen "The Sixth Sense" too many times?

--Once Rachel goes on a quest to solve the mystery of the tape, why don't her editors call her to find out where she's been all week? In an early scene, her boss threatens to fire her--but why? Besides being a little surly--and what journalist isn't--what egregious offenses has she committed?

--On a foggy island off the coast of Seattle, where Rachel ends up on her journey, the locals (including the bottom-of-the-well girl's doctor, played by Jane Alexander) cryptically refer to how much better life is without the child around. We see her briefly in a psychiatric hospital, but what could this kid possibly have done that is so horrible that she deserves to be dumped down a well?

--If the child has supernatural powers to produce a video without equipment, and can call people to warn them they're going to die even though she has no phone, why can't she get herself out of the well?

--And if she has the ability to send a video message, why must it be a wannabe creepy montage that's a film-school rip-off of Luis Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou"? Why not just say, "Hey guys, I'm down here," instead of making people guess what happened to her through images of maggots, ladders, empty chairs and eyeballs?

And a couple of the most baffling questions of all:

--If the original version of this movie was such a huge hit in Japan, why did director Gore Verbinski ("The Mexican") and screenwriter Ehren Krueger ("Arlington Road") have to remake it by cobbling together images from every other horror flick imaginable? There's the well from "The Amityville Horror," spooky telepathic kids from "The Shining" and deafening television snow from "Poltergeist," not to mention an apartment building homage to "Rear Window."

--And why did Watts choose this as the next movie she made after "Mulholland Drive?" Her stunning performance in last year's David Lynch movie earned her well-deserved rave reviews. Her presence and instincts here help raise the movie ever so slightly, but not enough.

— Christy Lemire, The Associated Press