Customer Reviews
The Eye 
2008-09-29
The movie is good just not scary!!
I rate this movie a 7 from 1to10!!
The Eyes Don't Quite Have It 2008-09-09
There's always room for one more thriller to slide a chill or two through the cracks around our casements. I'm not sure though that "The Eye" quite does the job. It's not too bad, but it's too much of a re-tread.
It might remind the viewer of any number of 1950's drive-in horror flicks that featured reanimated body parts. There was "The Hand," the "Head," and indeed a host of either transplanted or disembodied eyes with minds of their own. So the idea that a pair of transplanted eyes can see things that their new owner never saw - is an old one.
Then this film also recycles a lot of its special effects from "The Grudge" and "The Ring" - right down to specifics, including a pair of feet levitating behind the person riding on an elevator.
"The Eye" is also somewhat disappointing in that no real chemistry ever develops between the blind woman who receives an eye transplant and the doctor who counsels her after the operation. Although at the end of the film, the two take a dramatic road trip together in order to solve the mystery of the alarming visions that Jessica Alba's character is having - no convincing bond forms between them.
Finally, a volley of what initially sounded to me like pseudo-scientific rationales are delivered to make the premise of this film sound possible. They invoked entanglement and other concepts from quantum physics to make a convincing case that memories can reside in separate body parts. I laughed this off at first. But coincidentally, right after seeing "The Eye," an article appeared in an authoritative scientific magazine explaining that researchers are now coming to believe more literally in "body knowing." In their artificial intelligence departments, they are finding that in order to build effective robots, they have to distribute intelligence throughout all the functioning parts of the robot, rather than centralizing commands in a "brain." They now believe that this distributed intelligence is actually a better model of how humans themselves function. The article concluded that different parts of the body inform the brain with their memories and intelligences, rather than the other way around.
So perhaps "The Eye" does have it after all - or at least some of it.
It's not THAT bad, guys... 2008-09-09
Okay, there ARE too many Asian horror movies being reworked and lame-ified by ham-fisted Hollywood production companies and starring cute white chicks. But those Asian dudes kick out hot horror flicks like Americans kick out theatrical remakes of seventies TV sitcoms. They're just better at it than us; especially the Koreans and the Japanese, although the original movie this was ripped off from was made in Hong Kong, like the DVD player I watched it on.
The story was actually pretty coherent and creepy, and the direction was clever enough to jolt me a couple times. The cinematography served the story in giving every scene a lonely, mournful feel, and the sets were really cool; for instance, the hallway in the main character's apartment complex is constructed as a zig-zag to illustrate the confusion she's feeling in her life.
I guess if you're one of those gore freaks who's so desensitized that you have to watch snuff films to get an adrenaline high, this film will play like a BBC production of a Jane Austen novel. But for those of us who grew up in the seventies, watching slow-burn scary movies late at night on a black-and-white TV, this is right up our alley.
Oh yeah, and Jessica Alba's performance was quite good, not that it had to be.
I Liked it! 
2008-08-11
I think the only reason I like this movie is because I haven't seen the Orignal. Most people who have seen the orginal and enjoyed it shouldn't even try to watch a re-make, not just for this film but any because no matter how good it was they'll hate it. I have to say I enjoyed all the re-makes so far. "The Grudge"; "One Missed Call" and so on and so forth. I also like these because I haven't seen the org: The movie is worth watching.
Okay, but resorts to common stereotypes 2008-07-30
I'm actually very surprised that a remake would have been made of "The Eye," especially since I thought that by now, unless you're living under a rock, you've probably seen the original Pang Bros. creation. Also, I was very surprised that Jessica Alba would have been chosen as the lead in this film; first of all, I'm not an Alba fan -- she seems to be more the type that young preteen and teenage boys have a hankering for, and has starred in some quite embarrassing movies. Despite this, I found her performance in "The Eye" to be subdued and proper to the role, something that I was surprised by (she can actually act, wow!). I actually think the script was too limiting for Alba, and nearing the end, especially in the Mexican setting, she begins to almost look embarrassed because the script was so bad.
In sum, I liked the movie somewhat, although it can never compare to its original, much eerier predecessor; however, a little after half of the film, it starts to suffer from typical Hollywood syndrome. I actually think that the writers just thought that since Jessica Alba is part Mexican, that they should make her counterpart in the film Mexican and set in in a little dingy town that once again, stereotypes all Mexicans in the same light. For those who don't know, Mexico is not all shacks and slums and degradation. In sum, the film could have done much better if it had not resorted to this typical whitewashing of the American who has to save the poor third-world country peasant. That's why I'm giving it only three stars.
Awful. Save your time. 
2008-07-27
Sydney Wells is blind and has been so since a childhood tragedy. After undergoing surgery to restore her sight she learns to see again. But soon after, unexplainable shadowy and frightening images start to haunt her. Not knowing if they are an aftermath of surgery, her mind adjusting to sight, her imagination, or something horrifyingly real, Sydney is soon convinced that her anonymous eye donor has somehow opened the door to a terrifying world only she can now see.
Not Terribly Bad 2008-07-20
I would describe this movie as a mystery/thriller. It is about a blind woman played by Jessica Alba who gets an eye transplant operation. Along with her new eye sight, she gains a 2nd sight. She can see dead people and, I guess you would call them, grim reapers. She also has a therapist that does not believe her during most of the movie, but eventually comes through for her and helps her.
This movie almost borders on boredom for me, but it kept my attention with the mystery of why she was seeing the dead. I wasn't use to seeing Jessica Alba in a film like this, but I thought she did a great job at carrying the film and her acting was convincing, at least for me.
Maybe, the overall film could have been better, but I have nothing to base that off of. Nothing to offer as to what could be added or done different, but the film tells a story and concludes with answers to questions about the plot of the movie. So, it wasn't terribly bad, but I wouldn't watch it again.
Thanks.
Not entirely what I expected 2008-07-18
Perhaps I enjoyed this movie more because I went into it with very, very, very low expectations. The plot and premise seemed flimsy and ridiculous, and even though I do like Jessica Alba, I wasn't sure decent acting could save a plot that seemed so trite and boring. But partway through my opinion began to change. I decided this isn't really a horror movie, not in the classical sense of what has taken over the horror genre (gore like Saw and Hostel). It's a supernatural mystery with a bit of suspense, if you want to get long-winded and technical. Nothing about it was implicitly scary, but it was interesting and drew me along. I wanted to see the end, and not just to find out if I'd won the classic 'guess who survives' horror movie game.
Sure, the premise is implausible and the entire story is completely unbelievable, but it was an entertaining movie and was fun to watch. I don't ask for realism in my movies (okay, not most of the time!), all I want is to be entertained and this movie, while neither greatly original nor brilliantly written, was enjoyable enough. Horror/suspense fans looking to pass an eventful evening would enjoy this one, but if you're looking for more than that, don't bother.
Original Chinese version is very good, American version is lame 
2008-07-16
Some of the American remakes of Asian horror films are worthy of our time and some are not. For instance, the American version of The Ring--with the exception of the incompetently directed, terribly acted initial 10 minutes or so--is actually better than the Japanese version, and a very good ghost story in its own right. The American version of The Grudge is also quite effective as a horror movie. As for The Eye, you're much better off watching the original Pang brothers' Chinese version. For example: One of the key segments of the story is when the main character finds out who donated her transplanted corneas, and sets off to learn what she can about the donor. In the Pang's film, these sequences are pretty startling and creepy, are much more effectively edited, and, compared to the American remake, even make better use of sound and camera movement to build suspense. By contrast, this same section of storyline in the American re-make is rushed and cursory. It is ineffective both as storytelling and as cinema--it's just nothing special, when it should have been one of the hallmarks of the film. Other aspects of the American version also come off as sloppy. For instance, Helen, the sister of Sydney (the main character) promises Sydney she will stick by her and help her as she recovers from surgery and learns to cope with her new-found ability to see. But then Helen inexplicably leaves town and we don't see her again until literally the last few seconds of the movie. I don't honestly recall what role the sister played in the Pang's version, but her character serves almost no purpose in the American version. This is just sloppy filmmaking. Bottom line, the Chinese version of The Eye is a pretty good little creepy horror flick (The Eye 2 is also quite good--a very unusual, low key, yet startling, ghost story), but the American version is a complete waste of time. It gets two stars instead of one only because Jessica Alba is so dang pretty.
THE EYE IS NOT WORTH SEEING 2008-06-27
I've talked to a number of people who have really ragged on actress Jessica Alba. They claim that she has no talent whatsoever, that she is nothing more than a pretty face. Well she is that but I think there is more beneath that is not seen often enough. Unfortunately it's also not seen here in THE EYE.
Alba stars as Sydney Wells, a blind concert violinists who is about to have her world completely changed. A donor has been found and replacement eye surgery puts her next in line to receive the gift of vision.
While we are first exposed to her world of sightlessness, as most movies concerning blind characters that suddenly see, the majority of the film deals with what happens after she receives sight. When she wakes in the hospital, she sees things. Since she's never seen before (or at least since she was a child) she's not sure if these images are normal or something else.
With the aid of Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandra Nivola), a doctor whose job it is to help patients like these adjusts to life with sight, Sydney discusses the visions she begins having. Not only is her focus coming in when it comes to those around her, she keeps seeing a dark figures as well. These later adjust to become more than mere shadow figures but horrific images that resemble more nightmares than dreams.
Determined to find out just what is causing these visions, Sydney decides to discover whose eyes she was given. The path of the film to this point is long and tedious. At times you feel like you'll never get here. But we do and that is when we find that Sydney's eyes came from a young Mexican woman who was branded as a witch by the local villagers.
It sis while on a trip to see her family and to get to know more about her that Sydney has her most vivid sight ever, seeing the images of hundreds being carried off by these dark characters she has been seeing. Can she discover just what it is that she is seeing, what it is she is supposed to do?
This movie offers very little in the way of entertainment. The plot seems to move along at a snails pace, feeling a bit redundant at times. The acting is fine and lacks no where, but when the script moves along like this, nothing can save it.
Having seen the original film that this was based on, 2002's Chinese film THE EYE, it was hard not to compare the two films. Fortunately it's been a while since I saw that one and I didn't feel like I was referring back and forth between the two. I will say that the original held my interests more and built suspense and mystery than this production though.
Hollywood seems to have given up on creating new horror, relying more on remakes of horror favorites (even FRIDAY THE 13TH is being remade as I write) and of oriental films like this one or THE GRUDGE and THE RING. Its fine to turn these foreign films into something more English speaking people will see, but if you choose to do so, why not honor the original instead of picking a few scarps of meat from the bones to be content with.
Yes, THE EYE is not a movie I could recommend whole heartedly to rent or purchase. But, as this article began, it does not mean that Jessica Alba is a terrible actress. Even some of the best actresses ever were hindered with bad scripts and bad directing. Let's just hope that Alba recovers from this one and move forward.
