I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
... View MoreIt's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
... View MoreIt's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
... View MoreMostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
... View More"Los Ojos De Julia" may be a notch below "El Cuerpo", which came out two years later and has some of the same people involved in its making, but it's still a very good thriller: it's suspenseful, atmospheric, and has some extraordinarily well-conceived and executed cat-and-mouse sequences (especially near the end when Belén Rueda removes the bandages from her eyes but has to keep pretending that she can't see). The use of light and shadow, as well as the general use of the camera in this movie, should be used as teaching tools in film schools! Rueda is a vulnerable yet strong female lead, she gives the film her all. The script does contain one hard-to-swallow contrivance - or is that two: that Rueda would prefer to go back to her house right after the operation rather than being taken care of at the hospital, and that the police would let her. I also thought the ending (spoiler!) is overly cruel to her character: yes, she survives, but she has basically lost everything. She could have at least regained her eyesight. *** out of 4.
... View MoreGuillermo del Toro has often been presented/named as a horror director/producer... Usually, though, the films he is involved with are more like "dark fairy tales" with sympathetic monsters and... that kind of boring stuff.This movie (which he has produced) is not like that. It actually starts as a decent mystery/thriller which offers very good scares and deals with one of the most tragic conditions a human being could ever face: the loss of one's eyesight. The directors ideas for the depiction of blindness are very very good, and the viewer can actually feel the character's helplessness. And that's about all that's good about the film.Once the plot starts to unravel, the story sinks itself into absurdity, providing us with a villain driven by one of the least realistic motives ever. To top that we are faced with some soap opera situations/twists that are equally non-believable. Yes, in Norman Bate's case, this kind of ideas was very interesting, but after the repetition of those models for the 1000th time, to be honest - we've had enough of them. Also, visually it is one of those "modern" movies that take place in a world with only three to five colors, ranging from blue to (hardly) green. Finally, the movie closes with a repetition one of the most used movie clichés, i.e. the "using camera flash in the dark in order to see" scare...The verdict: when this movie tries to be original, it resorts to ideas that defy logic completely, and when it incorporates classic patterns, it does it in a way that is completely uninspired.
... View MoreThe Spanish horror cinema is one of the big surprises of recent years. The orphanage, and less-in measure-REC REC 2 showed signs of the vitality of a genre that scares when it comes forward with a Spanish accent.Julia's Eyes is a psychological thriller where a woman who is going blind in the middle of her job has the sensation that she is being strangled after that she shortly receives news that her sister who is already blind due to both having a genetic illness they both share, committed suicide (the myth that twins,can feel when something happens to his/her sibling at the same time)which is never brought again in the film,Julia who knew her sister pretty well knows that it wasn't a suicide but murder instead.This is an excellent hook for a thriller that, relatively speaking, could be related more with old mysteries of Alfred Hitchcock or the early films of Dario Argento.In fact it would not be unusual for Alone in the Dark (1967), Terrence Young film with Audrey Hepburn would have represented some influence in this story, as they have some points in common.The tension in the film is produced by great acting specially from Belen Rueda, the strong band and effectiveness of the sound effects,angle shots framing( there's a brilliant technique in the middle of the film that gives an idea on how a blind person interacts with someone that they can not see), photography, and the locations. it has some minor flaws in the plot but above all its a terrific film to enjoy
... View MoreA respectable blend of drama and horror, using strengths of both but also succumbing occasionally to the weaknesses.Suspense is present from the very beginning, building to an exciting and unexpected climax, unfortunately falling a bit flat afterward. In fact, the last 30 seconds of the film somewhat blemish the drama of the story as a whole, mostly because the ending touches on a relationship that was hardly explored and not at all significant through the rest of the film, partly because of the focus on the very thing that makes this movie good: the constant twists and turns in the story. This also leads to some ideas that are passable but don't make nearly as much sense as they're supposed to; particularly the whole "people who aren't seen"/"There was no man with her (Sara)"/"Don't look at me!" motif. I still don't get it, but it has little impact on the story anyway.I believe the entirety of the story could have used some fine tuning, and run time could have been trimmed by 10 to 15 minutes... But overall it's engaging, well acted, and sets an excellent and fitting mood visually. Thrillers that can't project the protagonist's experience to the viewer fail horribly... this movie does an outstanding job providing a sense of confinement that fits the title character's world, and this is where its greatest strength lies.Although character relationships are a bit thin and suspense doesn't hit many high notes, this is a fairly exciting thrill ride and a good effort all around. One last thing, I would recommend watching it without distraction... the mood is more visual and in the flow of the story than it is intellectual or suspenseful, and it's easy to lose interest if you step away for a few minutes.
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