Movie Review: The Eye

Jessica Alba is due to give birth this summer, and understandably her agents were a bit concerned that a prolonged absence from the big screen might give her even younger rivals a chance to steal her rising star. So they clearly got her to sign up to any half-arsed project that came her way to make sure no one forgets what an acting powerhouse she is.

A couple of weeks back we had the sleep-inducing medical thriller Awake, and now a remake of the hit Asian horror The Eye. In the grand tradition of ridiculous movie professions, Alba plays a famous concert violinist who happens to be blind. When she undergoes pioneering eye transplant surgery, she discovers that her new peepers are allowing to see all sorts of horrible things...

The Eye is directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud, who proved last year that they could deliver the scary goods with the French shocker Them. Unfortunately they seem to have left everything that made that film so successful in their homeland because The Eye is about as generic as Hollywood horror gets.

The movie plays like a Frankenstein's monster of recent horror hits, and the scriptwriters are so aware that this material is utterly derivative that they even include a jokey reference to The Sixth Sense in the dialogue. If the filmmakers can't take the material seriously, how can they expect an audience to?

Jessica Alba pouts, screams and gives the worst portrayal of a blind person since Val Kilmer in At First Sight, while Parker Posey is clearly under the impression that she's appearing in a Christopher Guest horror spoof.

To be fair, the original movie wasn't exactly overflowing with original ideas either, but at least the handling of it was clever and atmospheric. This version just lumbers from one flatly handled, unscary set piece to the next, and the climax is so limp it's in danger of dribbling off the screen.

Still, the film's target audience – 13 year old girls – should enjoy it, and hopefully Alba's pay cheque will buy her kid some nice toys.