Ready or not Original aspect

Ready or not

Original aspect ratio: 39:1 English: LPCM 1 48kHz, 16-bit English: Dolby Digital 1 Spanish: Dolby Digital 1 English: LPCM 1 48kHz, 16-bit English: Dolby Digital 1 English SDH, French, Spanish Dahlia Williams Jennifer Connelly and her five-year-old daughter are ready to begin a new life together. But their new apartment dilapidated and worn suddenly seems to take on a life of its own. Mysterious noises, persistent leaks of dark water and other strange happenings in the deserted apartment above send Dahlia on a haunting and mystifying pursuit one that unleashes a torrent of living nightmares. When The Ring came along in 2002, Im sure ready or not people wouldnt have predicted that it would inspire the American film industry to remake every Japanese horror flick under the sun. Yet, here we are in 2006 and they just keep getting made. The Ring itself was a fun and spooky ride. In my opinion, however, everything that has proceeded it, has been an obvious attempt to cash in on the phenomenon it created. Dark Water, on the other hand, has a slightly higher pedigree than most of these remakes. With a strong cast, high production values and the same author as The Ring itself, Dark Water showed promise in an otherwise lackluster genre. Dahlia Williams Jennifer Connelly is having a pretty rough go of things. Her husband has left her for another woman, shes unemployed and shes desperately looking for an apartment where she can care for her young and precocious daughter, Cecelia Ariel Gade. To make matters worse, about the only apartment she can afford is a relative dump on New Yorks Roosevelt Island. Hey, at least the schools in the area are good. Once Dahlia and her daughter settle in, all sorts of disturbing events begin to transpire. Black water seems to constantly drip from the bedroom ceiling and the water faucets have a nasty habit of spewing disgusting substances at inopportune times. Is their new apartment haunted? Is the landlord trying to drive them crazy? Is her husband in on it all? Or is Dahlia just a nutcase? Despite evidence to the contrary, the child in this photograph is not animatronic Dark Water is a really sad movie. Its not particularly scary, it isnt particularly suspenseful and it certainly wont be causing any nightmares. Those of you familiar with The Ring will certainly recognize many common plot points. This, in reality, is a film about abandonment and despair. Almost everything about Dark Water is unpleasant. Just about every room, building, person and thing in the movie is, on some level, disgusting. Other than Dahlia herself, I counted a grand total of 3 somewhat redeeming characters in the entire movie. There is an absolute TON of acting talent present in Dark Water : Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Tim Roth almost totally unrecognizable and Pete Postlethwaite. The acting is great across the board. Actually, its ready or not than this film deserves. If the filmmakers had just tried to tell a simple story, I think we would have had a very interesting psychological drama. Instead, there is so much phony melodrama, forced tension and random paranoia inserted into this film that it just falls completely apart. Dark Water is clearly trying to mine material from the likes of The Shining and even a bit of Poltergeist. As is usually the case, those classics do the job much better than this cobbled together story. All we are left with is a very frustrating and ultimately unrewarding experience. In an effort pump up the disgusting-factor in Dark Water, the entire movie has apparently been based around the color palette most well represented by dirt and mud. This movie is extremely dark. Many scenes are almost sepia-toned and devoid of vibrant colors. While this can be a very effective tool in setting the mood of a film like this, it really doesnt leave one with a Check out how amazing my HD video is type of transfer. With that being said, there were no apparent faults in this Blu-Ray transfer.