A Lack of Vision
posted on Thursday, February 07, 2008 in Movie Reviews
The Eye is another film in a long line of Asian horror remakes coming out of Hollywood. In general, these films haven’t been very good, failing to capture the unique perspectives that the original movies had. The Eye is no exception. While sticking pretty close to the story of the original Pang Brothers film, this remake forgets the most important thing of all: terror. Sidney is a concert violinist who has been blind his childhood. She is given the chance to see again thanks to a corneal transplant. As she adjusts to having sight again, she begins to see things that aren’t really there, horrifying visions of death and destruction. She tries to get help, but no one believes her. Driven to the brink of madness, Sidney must find out who her eyes came from, so that she can finally be free from the shadow of looming death.
The story is pretty much the same the original film, with a few cosmetic changes. There is a change near the end that kind of lessens the dramatic intensity, but overall, it’s the same story. But the original The Eye was never a narrative masterpiece to begin with. The original film’s real strength was in its ability to build terror. It was a prime example of what Asian horror could do: it would let a threat build under the surface, keeping all the terror to the fringes of the screen until everything reaches a boiling point. And then they’d spring everything at you.
The new directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud don’t really know what they’re doing. They show the threat too early, and hardly ever leave anything to the imagination. This is yet another film that chooses to surprise the audience rather than make them actually scared. It’s lazy filmmaking, since anybody can jump out of a box and shock someone, but it takes real hard work to really bring terror to the screen. The directors do absolutely nothing new, and they even sometimes fail when they’re just doing something old. Scenes go on for far too long, and scares outstay their welcome.
The final proof of this film’s lack of any imagination is in the casting of Jessica Alba. The film’s plot calls for a talented actress, one who had depth and the ability to provide nuance. Sidney is actually a pretty complex role, calling for the actress to pretend to be blind, and then pretend to see for the first time. Alba just doesn’t have enough talent to convince us. It’s pretty obvious that they weren’t looking for actual acting ability when they cast Alba, and were mostly thinking of how well she rated with certain demographics. As attractive as Alba is, she was completely the wrong choice for this role, and one could only imagine how much better this film could have been if she traded roles with the actress that plays her sister in this film, Parker Posey.
They need to stop making these Asian horror remakes. It feels like Hollywood just doesn’t get it, taking the scripts wholesale without trying to understand what actually made them work on screen. What’s absolutely shocking is that The Eye isn’t even the worst Asian horror remake of recent memory. It is, however, still pretty bad. You’re better off closing your eyes.
My Rating:
Do you agree with this rating? Submit your own.
Read User Reviews
I'm looking for The Eye.
PLDT Watchpad
