Brilliant and touching

Absolutely brilliant

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Sydney (Jessica Alba) ended up being blind at the age of 5 due to an accident. 20 years later she is given a cornea transplant which enables her to be able to see again. However, she soon starts to see things that other people are not able to and with the help of Dr Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola), Sydney sets about trying to discover why she is seeing these disturbing images which eventually leads her all the way back to the donor of her eyes.I didn't realise (until I started watching this film) that this was a remake of a film that was originally produced in China. Although I haven't seen the original, I am a fan of Asian cinema and know that they are generally good at telling stories and usually do this sort of thing better than Hollywood - Oldboy is a good example of this. However, since I'm not in a position to draw comparisons, I'll stick to my thoughts on the American version that I've just watched. I quite liked the concept and found Sydney's initial journey of re-discovering the ability to see again to be fairly intriguing. The nightmarish visions at the start again add to the intrigue and set up what could have been a relatively suspenseful film.I think what really lets this film down is that in the second half it seemed to just become a rip-off of the Sixth Sense and it even has a touch of Ghost about it as well. I'm sure the phrase 'I see dead people' was used at one point. The scares that we see throughout the film are very clichéd, predictable and a little tiresome. The narrative is also a little repetitive as well.To its credit, the final third of the film offers some interesting twists and turns and the final analysis given by Sydney does certainly leave the viewer with something to think about. Ultimately, The Eye is watchable and I have to admit that 90 minutes passed by fairly painlessly and it never really became boring. It's pretty poor as a horror film, but the concept and story are both OK. Now that I know that there is an Asian original film to this out there then I'll be sure to check that version out (if I can find it).

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".

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.

Got this movie on blue ray the other day and was really really interested I thought it was going to be a hit out of the park but sadly i was mistaken.But it must be said that this movie was pretty good. It should have been much much better then it was.Jessica alba was smokin hot as usually and played the part very well The movie really went all over the place and really took a long time to get to the point then ends. You have to watch it. it is worth it there are so many worse movies out there for you to watch At the very least the subject matter of the film in very interesting.