YMMV / Rings

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The plane scene at the beginning does not tie in with the rest of the plot at all, except possibly to establish that the tape and the legend are still circulating.
• Critic-Proof: Despite having a Rotten Tomatoes score very close to zero, the movie grossed a box office revenue that is more than 3.3 times its budget.
• Designated Hero: Julia's actions end up dooming a significant number of people to die by the end of the picture, despite the fact Burke warns her about it.
• Designated Villain: Burke is definitely evil (being a killer, rapist and pedophile), but the film doesn't seem to quite realize Burke is the only person in the entire movie actually stopping Samara from killing thousands, if not millions.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Like with the last movie, most people act like Rings doesn't exist, and instead treat the short film (also called Rings) as the true sequel to the original.
• Ham and Cheese: Vincent D'Onofrio lets loose the ham in the climax, raving about the Lord and holy fury. Every other member of the cast seems to be phoning it in.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Vincent D'Onofrio, arch-enemy to a blind Catholic, playing a blind Catholic. The "in hindsight" part comes because both projects were filmed at about the same time, so they couldn't have known in advance that he'd end up playing Kingpin.
• It Was His Sled: Most of the plot leads to what anyone who has seen The Ring already knows.
• Moral Event Horizon: Samara crosses it here by digitalizing her curse so it can infect thousands of people and she can kill them all.
• Sequelitis: The film has received worse reviews than its predecessors, with a measly 5% on Rotten Tomatoes.
• Strawman Has a Point: Sure, Galen Burke is a despicable rapist pedophile, but it does seem curious that he turns out to be entirely correct in his assessment of Samara. In fact, his actions seem to be the only thing keeping Samara, a mass-murdering demonic entity that could wipe out human civilization, in check. In the end, for all the talk about Samara's tragic past and Julia's heroism, Samara ends up (presumably) murdering several thousand people and Julia helps her do it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The trailers made it seem as if the plot of the movie was about the ring video becoming a viral phenomenon, with people everywhere and in large scale watching the video and dying, and the main characters have to race against time to stop the spread of the ring video before it is too late, and everyone dies.
  • What is happening with Rachel and Aiden at this time? Or any of the other survivors from the previous films?
  • The idea of a group of people studying and experimenting with the video has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, practically none of that potential is used.