The Eye (2008)

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2008
Country of origin:	USA / Canada
Director:	David Moreau, Xavier Palud
Genre:	Bland remake
Starring:	Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola
Rating:	2/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406759/
Tagline:	Don't believe your eyes
Favourite line:	None worth mentioning

American remake of the Hong Kong spook-fest Gin Gwai.

The plot:
A musician, blinded as a child in an accident, finds renewed hope when her sister pays for a recently developed treatment that may restore her sight.
Nervously, as the bandages are removed, she opens her eyes and, though blurry to begin with, soon her vision is clear.
Initially excited, thrilled by the sight of the world she had all but forgotten, it’s not too long before things take a turn for the weird; half formed shadows glimpsed at the periphery of her vision; a small boy whom no-one else can see speaking to her; a dead child approaching her in the hospital.
Terrified, she cuts herself off from the outside world, blacking out the windows, preferring to return to a state of sightlessness than continue to experience the visions.
But some things refuse to be ignored…..

Remakes get a bit of a hard time by proper movie fans, and with good reason, most of them pale imitations of their origins and, unfortunately, the pattern holds here.
The original, co-directed by the wonderfully named Danny Pang and Oxide Pang Chun, came out with that slew of J-horror creepiness that included Ringu (The Ring), Ju-On (The Grudge) and, the best of the bunch, Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water) and, whilst not quite as good as any of them, still it was an efficient enough chiller, with sufficient Eastern weirdness to set the nerves a-tingle.
Here, all edges have been removed, all layers or subtleties flattened into one reasonably dismal blancmange of a movie that really has no identity of its own.
Jessica Alba, though pleasant enough on the eye is pretty useless in The Eye (see what I did there) and the rest of the cast are uniformly bland and forgettable.
Not awful, then, but utterly unremarkable.
Wouldn’t bother.