The Eye

Director: David Moreau, Xavier Palud
Screenwriters: Sebastian Gutierrez, Jo Jo Yuet-chun Hui
Starring: Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey
Running time: 98 mins
Certificate: 15

Jessica Alba may be about to crank out a sprog, but she's also been busy churning out some decidedly mediocre movies in recent times. The Eye is no exception, plodding along blindly until its predictable set-piece finale. Alba does turn in a credible performance and the direction is taut, but the whole affair fails to engage with its shoddy narrative based on the 2002 Chinese flick Gin Gwai.

The story revolves around Sydney Wells (Alba), a blind violinist who undergoes a double cornea transplant to give her vision. Afterwards, she struggles to focus and suffers frequent nightmarish visions and sees dead people. Fortunately she's not accompanied by a little brat though, unlike Bruce Willis. Sydney subsequently seeks to track down the origins of the cornea donor and uncovers an accident waiting to happen. But can she prevent it in time?

The Eye works best when the focus is on the emotional plight of Sydney. In particular, the traumatic post-operation effects are well realised and a dizzying sense of claustrophobia is unleashed with some effective camerawork once the bandages are off and Sydney is thrown a party. Alba's sturdy performance also elicits plenty of sympathy towards her fragile but dignified character, backed up by some good point-of-view shots to better tell her predicament.

However, the horror element consistently fails to provide the necessary shocks and tension that such a genre movie is dependent on. Frequent dream sequences attempt to jolt the viewer at regular intervals, but it's terribly predictable and ineffective. You just know that after every grizzly, nightmarish sequence the action will cut to a shot of Sydney waking up in bed. Yawnsome indeed.

The finale itself, in which Sydney turns into life-saving heroine, does momentarily manage to whip up some excitement. It seeks to put forward a reason for the nightmarish visions, although it's mainly an excuse for a few loud bangs and flashes. At least it takes place in the 'real world' and not Sydney's dreams though, and provides some kind of visceral comfort following the previous tedium.

Totally uninspired, The Eye joins a long list of disposable, formulaic horror movies that seems to think that having a well-known name above the title is more important than a decent script.