GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 2/1/08)

A tediously noisesome English-language remake of an Asian horror picture that wasn't any great shakes to begin with, The Eye stars a rather drawn and undernourished-looking Alba as Sydney Wells, a blind concert violinist. The thoroughly vacant Alba — who might well be challenged to locate the "start" button for a game of "Guitar Hero" — portraying someone who plays, never mind is vaguely conversant with, classical music, is, in fact, the single most implausible feature of the plot, which finds her the recipient of new, sight-restoring corneas … through which she sees not only dead people but the angry Mummenschanz-reject-looking "escorts" who take them to the netherworld. As with the 2002 "original," directed by brothers Danny and Oxide Pang, this is more or less The Sixth Sense second hand, in every sense of the term. Parker Posey looks even more haggard than Alba as the heroine's guilt-ridden sister, Nivola (now back in permanent I-forgot-how-to-shave mode) smirks his way through a for-the-paycheck turn as Sydney's initially skeptical eye specialist, and Seberdzija relaxes in a bland, nonvillanous, entirely inessential role as Sydney's conductor.

All the performers of course are entirely subordinate to the film's scares/shocks, which go something like this: 1) flash or glimpse of something ominous in the frame's middle distance, accompanied by high strings or some such spooky noise on the soundtrack; 2) the disappearance of that ominous thing, and the onset of a false-comforting lull; 3) beat one, beat two, beat three (or, if the filmmakers are going for the changeup, one extra beat or — they love this! — one less beat; 4) and wham!!! The ominous thing is screaming right into the camera lens and the strings are accompanied by tympanis and maybe horns or whatever orchestration sounds the most like something out of the soundtrack to The Shining without getting too weird. Basically the first hour is that, over and over again, until it's time to get through the explanatory narrative, which no one seems much engaged by. I'm a little confused as to why production company Lionsgate chose to import French directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud to do this job of work. Surely there are some American hacks out there who could deliver on this tiresome fright formula just as handily.

— Glenn Kenny