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The Eye - sometimes being dead is preferable
From IMDB: "The
remake of the Hong Kong film "Jian Gui", a woman who receives an eye
transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world."
The biggest problem with "The Eye" is not that it is a
remake of one of the most insipid and dull Hong Kong supernatural
thrillers ever made, "Gin Gwai" but that it isn't any improvement over
the original either.
The consensus appears to be that this
film is just boring. Boring isn't a strong enough word to describe it
though. It's tedious, dragged out, and makes you want to stab yourself
with a fork to stay awake for the 97 minutes running time just in case
anything happens at all.
I watched the original a few years ago
and didn't really like it so I was hoping that there was going to be
some new angle to this. Unfortunately, apart from changing the
locations, the names of the characters and a few subtle plot
differences, it was actually worse.
I can't blame the actors for
this one. Jessica Alba is alright to look at and there is no doubt that
she can act and look worried really well. The story here was just so
thin and the dialogue was so bad that nobody could have made any more
of it. Alessando Nivola however plays such an unconvincing doctor that
I would actually dread to have someone like him involved in any
post-surgical recovery process in real life. Shouting at your patients
and telling them that they are wrong a couple of days after they've had
cornea transplants is not a good bedside manner!
There
were a couple of moments where I thought that things would pick up. A
jump scare involving an oven fell flat though and the others
disintegrated into horrible messes of CGI. There was no tension, no
suspense, just no atmosphere whatsoever. It could have been a daytime
TV show about boiled eggs for all the emotional impact it had.
The ending was just like a deleted scene from "Final Destination". The whole movie
is supposed to build up to this final act as an explanation of why
Sydney Wells is seeing things in the first place but it just felt
tagged on and was very rushed. It didn't really make any difference
though because I'd already written this whole film off after the first
ten minutes anyway.
I'm not sure if anyone would like this film.
It's not going to appeal to fans of the original and for older horror
fans it's just like a very bad version of "Eye" from "Body Bags"
(1993). It's very dated and dull. That's a terrible way for a new film
to be.