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Movie Review: The Eye
Eye lost sight of scares
By John Wirt
jwirt@theadvocate.com
Advocate movie critic
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Other than a few shocks, there’s little worth seeing in The Eye. So much of what happens here has been seen so often before, especially the menacing spirit-who-won’t-leave-a-young-woman-alone and I-see-dead-people bits.
Yet another American remake of an Asian horror flick, The Eye stars the photogenic Jessica Alba as a blind concert violinist who receives a double corneal transplant. Alba’s Sydney Wells lost her sight at 5 while she and her older sister were playing with firecrackers. The guilt-ridden sister (the seldom seen in The Eye Parker Posey) has been pushing for the surgery despite the great life Alba’s been leading for years sans sight.
Following successful surgery, trouble comes swiftly knocking. Why is Sydney’s hospital roommate leaving her bed in the middle of the night and following that mysterious dark figure? As if to make things more confusing, it’s too early after surgery for Sydney’s vision to have come into focus.
Directed by the French team of David Moreau and Xavier Palud (Them), The Eye weaves a reasonably creepy atmosphere. Increasingly desperate, Sydney goes nearly mad while she tries to figure what’s going on. Her supposed guide in the new world of sight, matter-of-fact neural ophthalmologist Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola), is little help. He stares at Sydney as if she’s a kid crying boogieman.
Sydney’s dangerous visions come anytime of day or night. When a strange woman lunges for her in a busy restaurant, a music colleague who can’t see dead people has no sympathy for her. Sydney’s sister, Helen, clueless, too.
The Eye also has those obligatory, crashing soundtrack thumps in the night. Maybe movie studios put such requirements in filmmakers’ contracts. To the film’s credit, the thumps are not as overused as they are in earlier films in the genre.
The chaotic spree of supernatural events in The Eye eventually reveals itself to be clumsy misdirection. And before the film reaches its hollow ending, The Eye throws its creepy atmosphere away in favor of characteristically big and loud Hollywood special effects.
Maybe between its Chinese-Thai source and French directors, The Eye got lost in translation. And someone forgot to make it scary.
