The Eye (2008)

"The remake of the Hong Kong film 'Jian Gui', a woman who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world."

The biggest problem with "The Eye" is not that it is a remake of one of the most insipid and dull Hong Kong supernatural thrillers ever made, "Gin Gwai" but that it isn't any improvement over the original either.

The consensus appears to be that this film is just boring. Boring isn't a strong enough word to describe it though. It's tedious, dragged out, and makes you want to stab yourself with a fork to stay awake for the 97 minutes running time just in case anything happens at all.

I watched the original a few years ago and didn't really like it so I was hoping that there was going to be some new angle to this. Unfortunately, apart from changing the locations, the names of the characters and a few subtle plot differences, it was actually worse.

I can't blame the actors for this one. Jessica Alba is alright to look at and there is no doubt that she can act and look worried really well. The story here was just so thin and the dialogue was so bad that nobody could have made any more of it.

Alessando Nivola however plays such an unconvincing doctor that I would actually dread to have someone like him involved in any post-surgical recovery process in real life. Shouting at your patients and telling them that they are wrong a couple of days after they've had cornea transplants is not a good bedside manner!

There were a couple of moments where I thought that things would pick up. A jump scare involving an oven fell flat though and the others disintegrated into horrible messes of CGI. There was no tension, no suspense, just no atmosphere whatsoever. It could have been a daytime TV show about boiled eggs for all the emotional impact it had.

The ending was just like a deleted scene from "Final Destination". The whole movie is supposed to build up to this final act as an explanation of why Sydney Wells is seeing things in the first place but it just felt tagged on and was very rushed. It didn't really make any difference though because I'd already written this whole film off after the first ten minutes anyway.

I'm not sure if anyone would like this film. It's not going to appeal to fans of the original and for older horror fans it's just like a very bad version of "Eye" from "Body Bags" (1993).

It's very dated and dull. That's a terrible way for a new film to be.