"The Eye" is a supernatural horror/thriller about Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba), an accomplished violinist who lost her sight at the age of five. But with advanced medical technology, Sydney is able to undergo a corneal transplant procedure, which would restore her vision. After the surgery though, the fact that Syndey can see the world around her doesn't matter to her anymore, because along with it she is seeing ghostly visions and witnessing horrific events from the past and the future. It begins to seem that Sydney is taking on the traits of the donor of the eyes, and she must uncover her identity to stop the visions and put the donor's spirit to rest.
While I haven't seen the original Chinese version, I can say this was a decent horror flick. It's a PG-13 horror flick, yes, but it's rather sophisticated for being so. Most films in this type of league have reputations for being not-so-great (a couple of examples that I can agree with would be last year's "The Messengers", and this year's "One Missed Call", both being films that completely missed the mark). But this was better than a lot of the PG-13 thrillers that are out there, and it is easy to see there was some solid thought and work put into it. The story, while it is a remake, is intriguing. The entire idea of an eye transplant is a scary thing to begin with, and the supernatural element carried along with it is clever. I really thought the pacing in the film was great, it evened itself out when handling the suspense and scares with the dramatic elements and was gradual up until the end.
There is some really great creepy imagery as well and some neat cinematography, and that's where most of this movie's strength is. There are some genuinely eerie visuals in this movie, most of them unlike any I've seen before, and there are some clever shocks and scares as well. I even have to admit that I jumped a couple of times and was slightly spooked, so I have to applaud the direction because they did a good job with that. I also immensely enjoyed the sequences where we get to see through the lead character's eyes, blurry vision and all, which was a neat way to put the audience in her shoes as her life spirals out of control after the procedure. I'm really squeamish when it comes to anything involving someone's eyes too, as many people are I'm sure, so a few moments did get my skin crawling.
I'm not going to lie, this movie does have some standard clichés but manages to be at least halfway original in some aspects. The acting is decent, nothing remarkable but Jessica Alba makes a likable lead here. Parker Posey is good too as her older sister, although her part is pretty small. Alessandro Nivola plays the role of the doctor who initially doesn't believe anything the Alba character is saying, a role we know too well, but does what he can with it. Also notable is Chloe Moretz of "The Amityville Horror" remake, playing a young cancer patient. The action-laced ending was a little flat if you ask me, and the revelation of the ghost's discontentment was well-thought out but also a little flat. I'm not going to harp on it though, because I felt there was sufficient effort put into this, and I for the most part enjoyed most of the movie.
Overall, in my eyes (pun intended), "The Eye" is a decent horror movie. It's not perfect by any means, but I can say it's better than most of the PG-13 horror flicks that have hit theaters in recent years. All in all it's a bit above average, and worth seeing if you like this sort of thing. It serves a few good scares and some interesting ideas, managing to be halfway refreshing compared to most horror films lately. I'd also like to add that this was far better than the atrocious remake of the Japanese horror movie, "One Missed Call", which was released about a month before this. So, if you were put off by that mess of a movie, I'd say give this one a chance, it might surprise you. It did me, anyway. 7/10.
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