American moviegoers may have lost interest in Asian horror remakes a long time ago, but that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from attempting to cash in on the next “The Ring.” Unfortunately, every movie since then has only looked like an inferior knock-off (namely because a lot of these Japanese ghost stories are the same), and though “The Eye” hails from a different part of the Far East, it shares a similar fate. Jessica Alba stars as Sydney Wells, a blind concert violinist who’s been given the chance to see again thanks to a surgical transplant. With her vision restored, Sydney attempts to reimmerse herself in society, but when she begins having vivid nightmares about the dead, she teams up with a therapist (Alessandro Nivola) to track down the history behind her donor.
Though David Moreau and Xavier Palud (the two-man team behind the cult European horror flick, “Them”) are extra careful about respecting the source material, “The Eye” is incredibly dull. Then again, so was the original film, so if it was their intent to make a scene-for-scene remake, they’ve succeeded. There’s just not a whole lot of substance to the story. Sydney spends most of the film trying to convince her friends and family that she’s not crazy, but it never actually goes anywhere until the final act. By then, most of the audience has already tuned out, and though its Hollywood-sized budget (not to mention Jessica Alba) makes watching the film easier on the eyes, there’s no other incentive to choosing this version over the one directed by The Pang Brothers.
