KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

rooprect If you're looking for a pulse-pounding horror thriller, you won't find that here. If you're looking for a spooky ghost story, you might want to move on. If you're looking for blood & guts & body parts, don't even waste a minute of your time."The Eye" isn't so much a horror flick as it is a supernatural drama.This film is a remake of the 2002 Chinese "The Eye" which I haven't seen, so I can't (and probably shouldn't) compare the two. I thought this was a nicely done film, more of an intimate character study than a scary "gotcha" flick. In that respect it's similar to "The Sixth Sense", and not just the story. Like "The Sixth Sense" which was a slow moving psychological drama that just happened to have dead people in it, "The Eye" takes a personal approach as well. And while that may bore the audience members who are expecting some screams, it ultimately results in a film with a little bit more to say than your average screamer.Jessica Alba ("Sydney") does a great job of playing a woman who has been blind since age 5, a loner, someone who doesn't seem to have many connections with people and she likes it that way. The underlying theme is that her blindness makes her feel unique, exempt from the real world. When she regains her sight after 15 years by a corneal transplant, it's not necessarily the wonderful experience you'd expect. There's a scene when she comes back from the hospital to a surprise party, and the scene is filmed with unsettling, distorted closeups of strange faces. It perfectly expresses the confusion and claustrophobia of not just a blind person gaining her sight, but that of an introvert being forced into society. That enough could've been enough for a feature length film: how a woman deals with the "gift" of sight which she doesn't really want. But it doesn't end there. She starts seeing dead people, too.While we never really feel like Sydney is in any deadly peril, there are a few very effective surprises which, I gotta admit, quickened my pulse a few notches. Also the "shadow men" were very creepy, and if you want to see a real shocker, check out the bonus features where we learn that the shadow men are not cgi graphics, but it's an actual dude... a sort of living skeleton who looks just as bizarre in real life than on screen.The 2nd half of the film becomes a mystery as Sydney tries to figure out why she's getting these disturbing visions and what she's supposed to do about it. Again, no hair raising car chases or shootouts here, just a thick atmosphere of the unknown.Like I said, I haven't seen the original Chinese film, but I can tell that the American filmmakers were trying to add a degree of backstory. In the bonus features they talk about the science of "cellular memory" (the idea that donated organs possess characteristics that are imparted to the new recipient). So I can assume that this is less of a visceral shocker (like the original?) as it is an intellectual approach. There's also the psychology bit I mentioned above. And it also touches on the idea that artists, musicians & creative thinkers are more sensitive to supernatural events (Sydney is a concert violinist). In short, "The Eye" sacrifices the raw approach of a typical action-horror flick, and instead replaces it with more of a slow-moving, scientific or "rational" approach to the supernatural.Depending on your preference, that's a good or bad thing. I can go either way depending on my mood; once in a while I like to think, whereas other times I just want to see Freddy slice some people to ribbons. "The Eye" definitely falls on the thinking side of that scale. Other thinking horror flicks I recommend are "Exorcist III" (one of the BEST), "The Others" with Nicole Kidman, and of course "The Sixth Sense".

SnoopyStyle Violinist Sydney Wells has been blind since age five. She receives a cornea transplant to recover her sight. She slowly regains her vision but also gains mysterious hallucinations. She makes friends with a patient Alicia (Chloë Grace Moretz) at the hospital. Her sister Helen (Parker Posey) who feels responsible for her blindness tries to help. Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola) is her new doctor helping her to adjust.Based on a Chinese horror, this is a pretty slim movie with few actual frights. It doesn't have any moodiness for atmosphere. It's not particularly creepy. The vision isn't handled with the best imagination. It's a lot of music cues to highlight visions. My question is why does her visions talk to her if she only did the eyes. So she sees not only memories but the future, death, and ghosts. It's a mishmash of random interior movie logic. There is nothing particularly wrong in this movie aside from the fact that there is nothing particularly right. Then there is the climax which isn't setup that well and seems to come out of nowhere.

FlashCallahan Violinist Sydney Wells has been blind since she was five years old due to an accident. She agrees to a cornea transplant to recover her vision. While recovering from the operation, she realises that she's having strange visions. With the support of Dr. Paul Faulkner, Sidney finds who the donor of her eyes and begins a journey to find out the truth behind her visions.....Another J-Horror remake, made in a time when everyone was remaking them, thanks to the success of The Ring, and The Grudge, and don't forget, we had the influx of Gornography, and the slew of eighties horror remakes at this time, so to be fair, horror really suffered from 2006 to 2009.But the difference with this movie is that its the remake of a remake to an American movie, Blink, which is a really good standalone film.There is nothing new here, we get all the jump scares, people seeing things in a reflection, and dark shadowy figures taking people away.Alba is as good as she always is, but when it comes to it all, its not scary, and offers nothing new. If you are used to these silly remakes and find movies like Shutter, Apartment 1303, The Grudge, The Ring, One Missed Call et al, affable, its a watchable mess.And Alba is easy on 'The Eye'

Leofwine_draca I knew this remake of the Asian hit was in trouble from the pre-credits opening sequence, in which a lame, CGI ghost is superimposed on the screen. With that to start us off, how much worse could it get? Soon after you begin watching, THE EYE reveals itself to be a humdrum viewing experience. The story, still so memorable (although it's years since I last saw the Chinese hit), involves Jessica Alba's character undergoing a cornea transplant after which she begins seeing the spirits of dead people. So far so SIXTH SENSE, you might think, but the supposed scare scenes in this flick are so well telegraphed in advance that only a blind viewer won't see them coming.Worse still, they make use of dodgy CGI apparitions – the bane of the modern Hollywood ghost film. I'd like to see, just once, a movie that doesn't utilise these appallingly fake computer creations and allows mood to speak for itself. The storyline is vapid and uninteresting, and Jessica Alba (FANTASTIC FOUR) just doesn't cut it as a believable heroine – her acting starts grating on the nerves after a while and she never convinces as a frightened victim.Every ghost film cliché is trotted out one after the other, leading to a saccharine ending that too-neatly ties everything up. I urge viewers to check out the original, on the offchance they haven't seen it, as it absolutely thrashes this one. Case in point: the celebrated elevator scene. In the original, it's one of those sequences that I had to watch behind splayed fingers, a truly disturbing horror experience enhanced by subtlety and a chilling soundtrack. Here, it's merely silly, utilising ludicrous CGI work of ghosts floating through walls and the like.Directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud previously made the outstanding French horror film THEM, but on the strength of this they should go back to film school.