Cell phone calls from recently deceased friends are the harbingers of doom in One Missed Call. As the soon-to-be victims listen to the message they hear their last moments and discover the time and date of their death. Until Beth they mostly just wait for it to happen, but she, along with a cop who’s sister died because of a call, set out to discover what evil is stalking the wireless network and hopefully stop it before they both become victims.

What seems like a run-of-the-mill unhappy ghost story turns out to be a little more in One Missed Call, but only a little. The truth is most of it’s pretty tired and unimpressive, but still entertaining.

It’s an easy first impulse to call all these techno-paranormal flicks rip-offs of The Ring, but that’s simplifying the matter.

As cities grow our sense of community diminishes. It’s easy to blame technology although the real culprit is probably overpopulation and a general lack of stake in society. Young people no longer feel like this country belongs to us. It probably doesn’t, but that feeling really cuts into our willingness to pull together to accomplish anything, and that’s why we don‘t.

Anyway, the easy link is most of them come to us from Asia, probably the only part of the world that loves it’s gadgets more than we do. Also like us, their world has changed dramatically in the last fifty years. Video games are more common that sports, people no longer have to gather to interact, we carry our whole world on our iPods.

We struggled for privacy and found isolation. Then through the internet, text messaging and cell phones, we again link up to try to fill that need for social interaction we might wither without. Still to many it’s intimidating. The world is completely different than it’s ever been before. People were once afraid that telephones would replace the need for people to ever talk in person. People saying the same things now are probably right, but I think it’s more of a result than a cause. There’s just too damn many of ya.

Just the same, this film does have some in common with the others, and sadly that’s the best it has to offer. I don’t think every movie that involves a creepy phone call that predicts death is derivative of The Ring, but this one sure as hell is.

There were some creepy images, and a couple really great scenes, but mostly it was forgettable. A dialing hand and a whispering corpse wasn’t enough to save it from the weak plot, and while the main character actually had some depth, it wasn’t enough to keep me in the story. It really felt like a bare-bones version of "ghost in the machine" idea, just without anything to keep it going. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not sorry I watched it, but I can't see myself watching it again.

On the other hand, it's fluff. It's bubblegum. Cotton candy. Some flavor, no substance, get it?

This one’s a good date flick, light and entertaining, not much thinking involved and not harrowing enough to cut into your sex drive.

5 out of 10 movies I’m completely impassive about