“Seeing is believing” begins the god-awful voice-over narration spoken by a blind Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) that opens David Moreau and Xavier Palud’s deficient The Eye.
That follows this dialogue, occurring after Sydney saves a skateboarder from being hit by a truck:
“You saved my life – I didn’t see it coming!” he says, thanking her.
“Neither did I,” she replies with a smirk worthy of Drew Barrymore, before striding down the street with all the blind subtlety of Stevie Wonder.
Three lines into the movie and my eyes were firmly entrenched in the back of my skull; this garbage was already D.O.A.
The Eye is based on the creepy 2002 Hong Kong film by the same name, directed by the Pang brothers, itself followed by three sequels (so far).
Plot is nearly identical, as our heroine undergoes a cornea transplant to restore sight, finds out she can see more than she should (ghosts!), and attempts to solve the mystery behind the death of her new eyes’ donor.
Gone from this version, however, is any sense of atmosphere, suspense, or terror; you’ll only be scared here if you’re frightened by loud noises or sudden movements.
On a side note, the ‘stingers’ in this film, those cliché soundtrack quick-scare tactics that punctuate suspense scenes in most horror films, are stretched out to 10-15 seconds during flashbacks here; the effect is nails-on-a-chalkboard whenever the movie tries to shock us.
Alba turns in a career-worst performance, unconvincing while playing blind, unconvincing while having sight (quite a feat!).
No one else in the cast is given much to do; the underrated Parker Posey is completely wasted as Sydney’s sister, while Rade Serbedzija suffers the same fate as Sydney’s orchestra teacher (I believe he was playing a Czech immigrant, appropriately named ‘Simon McCullough’).
This is another by-the-numbers, run-of-the-mill Asian horror remake, interchangeable with The Ring and The Grudge and all their sequels and remakes and rip-offs. It’s not a total loss, however; I laughed harder at this junk than any ‘comedy’ in recent memory.
