Jessica Alba in "The Eye"
(Credit: Lionsgate)
- Photos:
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- Running time:
- 97 minutes
- Rated:
- PG-13
- Cast:
- Jessica Alba -
- Sydney Wells
- Alessandro Nivola -
- Dr. Paul Faulkner
- Parker Posey -
- Helen
- Director:
- David Moreau, Xavier Palud
- Genre:
- Horror
- Official Movie Web Site:
- http://www.lionsgate.com/theeye/
- Movie Trailer:
- Overall User Rating:
-
(9 ratings)
The most vivid aspect of "The Eye" is its poster image, that of a huge female eye with a human hand gripping the lower lid from the inside.
The least vivid aspect is the way Jessica Alba delivers a simple line of expository dialogue. Talking to the secretive Mexican mother whose late, tormented daughter's peepers have ended up in Alba's skull in a cornea transplant, the actress strives for conversational but ends up sounding a little sleepy. "Did Ana ever ... see things she couldn't explain?" Alba asks. During the "..." part she seems to have forgotten the question.
It's not a bad film, actually, just functional and relatively tasteful (talk about your horror-related mixed blessings). The original 2002 Hong Kong version of "The Eye" laid out a clear blueprint for screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez and directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud. Alba plays a violinist blinded in a firecracker-related childhood accident. Post-transplant, she's haunted by scarifying dreams as well as waking visions of phantoms, wraiths, people hurling themselves at the camera and flames, flames, all the time flames. Alessandro Nivola plays a skeptical yet sensitive doctor.
Spoiler alert! Details about the ending are revealed in the next paragraph....
The Hong Kong version's climactic inferno is replaced by a happier, less corpse-strewn ending. If you have 12-year-olds in the house, they're better off seeing this passably crafted plodder than any number of more venal or torture-prone exercises.
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