Thread by @Linkara19

As per the vote, now watching Sadako 3D while I edit!

Unsurprisingly, first shot of the movie, where a guy dumps a woman down a well, is distractingly bad because it's done with the 3D gimmick in mind and since I'm not watching in 3D, it looks like a cardboard cut-out falling.

Opening credits are very generic "shaky, slightly staticy movie horror credits," even feels like I've seen the font they used, too.

It's over a guy giggling as he scribbles on walls and sews together white dresses (presumably for all the Sadakos he's been dumping in that well).

Actually, that's kind of an amusing point - we saw a shot from inside the well and he's been dumping women who look like Sadako in it so there's a great big pile of 'em. Reminds me of how in the first movie they needed to empty the well of water to get to her corpse...

...only now the inversion is you've got to get all those Sadakos out to get to the water.

"Let's get started."

Yes, let's get started with this weird, unnecessary, kinda goofy jump scared where the computer monitor turns red and Sadako's hand reaches out and then... just kinda wiggles her fingers.

...THE RING!

"I'm looking for the cursed video, the one where someone commits suicide in it and if you watch it you die!"

...You're not a very bright kid, are you?

"Cell phones are not allowed during class. ...What's this?"
"Oh, it's the cursed video where if you watch it, you die!"
*Entire class crowds around phone, wanting to see it. Teacher hits play inexplicably.*

*Turns out to be videos with snails and the text "Is this cursed?" and everyone has a good laugh.*

...I mean... this COULD still be Uzumaki.

Aaaand this girl has kept the "File not found" image on her screen for like hours and that allows Sadako to reach out of the phone and throw her through a window in another bad 3D effect.

Here's the sound she makes when she hits the ground.

We're in 3D, it's two decades since the first, and we're COMPELTELY removed from the novels at this point...

...aaaand it still comes back down to psychic people. That's what this franchise is really about - not cursed videos, but psychic people.

"How can a vide kill people? Does poison come out of it?"

Detective guy here giving the middle finger to Rasen.

"Something about this room seems fake."

"Fake, huh? Isn't EVERYBODY out there fake?"

...

...Welp, okay, some pros and cons about what has just occurred, with the first major confrontation with Sadako.

PRO: This guy who's manipulating the curse for revenge is clearly out to kill as many people as people via the curse, which definitely fits in with what I was...

...saying in Ring: Kanzenban about Sadako taking revenge on as many people as possible. It works.

PRO: The cursed video hides inside a fake 404 FILE NOT FOUND message. That's a pretty clever way of hiding the video so it's transmitted sneakily as opposed to just something...

...that can be easily avoided or scrubbed from the internet (it IS possible to do, just really, really hard).

CON: This cursed video sucks. Like... why did we need just this dude whining and then getting killed by Sadako? THAT is the cursed tape? Not... you know... the actual...

...cursed video? I mean, obviously the change in medium means that it's CONSIDERABLY easier to avoid it by making a copy and showing it to someone, since all you'd have to do is Ctrl+C and send it to somebody, but what the hell is this bullshit of it just opening a bunch...

...of windows showing the killing from different angles? The imagery in all other versions of the video are disturbing, weird, and at times creepy - even Kanzenban, with its occasional bits of nonsense, had a bit of a disturbing quality with distorted voices on the tape. This?...

...This is nothing. Like, how did this even happen? The cursed videotape came from her psychic projection or whatever from the well. Was this dude psychic and he burnt these last moments onto a thumbdrive or something?

CON: This IS still supposed to be a horror movie and frankly as a horror movie it's really lame. And I walked into this knowing it was going to be lame, but it's BARELY tried to scare and when it has, it has been less than impressive aside from, like, one or two jumpscares.

Like, the scariest part so far has been the opening bit with the well full of dead Sadakos. That's creepy and weird.

CON: This artist guy's motivation sucks. "People flamed me on the internet and now I'm going to destroy the world." It's like if Butch Hartman decided to...

...kill all humans because people pointed out his plagiarism.

This movie so far has been really a lame PG-13 (and I am stretching for PG-13 and not PG) horror movie with decent production values.

Oh, and our heroine is apparently Black Canary and can scream and shatter Sadako.

Or, to go back to my man Mitsuo:

*Teacher panics as she sees the File not found message in the computer lab on all computers, but everything returns to normal.*

"DON'T PANIC! IT'S JUST WINDOWS XP!"

I'm with you, Akane - idol groups just doing their thing on big outdoor screens IS pretty terrifying.