Rated: PG-13 for violence/terror and disturbing content. Runtime: 98 mins. Director: David Moreau; Xavier Palud Writer: Sebastian Gutierrez Cast:Jessica Alba; Allessandro Nivola; Parker Posey ... complete cast Tagline: How can you believe your eyes when they're not yours? Genre: Drama | Horror | Thriller Memorable Quote:"I know you're scared. Don't be. 'Cause the world really is beautiful." ... more quotes Release Date: January 31, 2008 DVD Release Date: June 3, 2008 Distributor: Lionsgate Official Site:www.theeyethefilm.com/ View the Trailer:www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/theeye2007
Reel commentary: ... the film looks terrific; the music is passable; the actors are all well cast; the dialogue is minimalist and rarely strays from understated. These are all good ingredients that should make a delicious pie, but we've just been fed it too many times. Time to try another recipe ... full review
Tell me if you’ve heard this story… or a version of it. A loving mom baked an apple pie for her family one special day. It was a thing of beauty, tasted like heaven on a plate, and as the last remaining bite was savouringly swallowed, all who partook in mom’s masterpiece praised the apron off her and begged for more...
Mom, wanting to give her special little guys moments like that everyday, got straight to work and more apple pies followed. The following few were just like the first: heaven on a plate... But as pie after pie passed our taste-buds, that initial sense of wonder and euphoria slowly but surely transformed into tired disinterest. Such is the human animal.
Hollywood has become the giant pie-giver of our globe. If there is a hit of some description, you can bet your mother that they’ll be a whole slew of them in short order. A few years ago The Ring scared the living crap out of cinema goers, and trusty Momma-Hollywood – as always – said 'Get more of those!'. What followed was a glut of Asian horror remakes, and The Eye is the latest.
Based on the Pang Brother’s 2002 original (or more accurately it’s closer to the 2005 Hindu remake Naina – it’s a remake of a remake in the space of six years!) The Eye follows the plight of blind musician Sydney Wells, who receives a corneal transplant to allow her to see for the first time since she was five. The operation goes off without a hitch, but as soon as Sydney takes off the bandages, she starts seeing some freaky shit. At first thinking it’s her new eyes adjusting, Sydney is terrorised by increasingly hard to ignore events that lead her on a search to find just who’s peepers she has inherited.
The film is not without its virtues. The script is structurally sound, tends to err on the side of subtleness that most of these types of horror films do, and has moments of effective build up. It’s problems, however, overshadow these very quickly – the most glaring of which is nothing in this film hasn’t been done before and recently. Films that take their time are great, if you haven’t seen it all before, but because we have their patient plotting has us four steps ahead of our heroin all the time and makes the film seem blander and slower than it should be. They are not talking down to their audience, its simply a matter of we’ve been here before and they've come too late. An unforgivable misstep that no excuse can be made for, however, is the pedestrian so-called scares with repetitive jumpy cuts, loud noises, and camera misdirection so over-used that a real blind person could spot it a mile off. You can only yell 'boo' so many times to garner effect before it gets old, and in this genre that was true a few years ago.
Jessica Alba does a great job. Constant accusations that the 27 year-old is as wooden as a pirate's leg are hard for this reviewer to reconcile. I concede some of her roles have been less than... meaty, shall we say? But she inhabits the character of Sydney well, plays blind well, and emotes naturally – can’t ask for more than that. The girl has more than looks to be able to hold you through this paint by numbers event.
Direction looks slick, but isn’t inventive or imaginative and thusly is not surprising (kind of a prerequisite if ya wanna scare us); production values are great – the film looks terrific; the music is passable; the actors are all well cast; the dialogue is minimalist and rarely strays from understated. These are all good ingredients that should make a delicious pie, but we've just been fed it too many times. Time to try another recipe.
Christopher Symonds
Comments
the eye lover says:
Aug 4, 2008 at 19:26
this movie is not scary its just kind of.. jumpy i guess
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles: English; Spanish; Closed Captioned
Language and Sound: English: English: Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Other Features: Color; interactive menus; scene access; behind-the-scenes featurettes; deleted scenes.
Commentary
No commentary track available
Featurettes
Birth of the Shadowman (01:25)
Becoming Sydney (04:29)
Shadow World: Seeing the Dead (08:13)
The Eye: An Explosive Finale (05:49)
Deleted Scenes - 8 scenes that didn't make the final cut for a total of 12 minutes of additional footage.
Previews - Original theatrical trailer for The Eye as well as four other Lionsgate titles.
Comments
