The Eye

The Eye

Directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud (R)

A cornea transplant leaves Jessica Alba with a sixth sense.

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Why someone bothered to remake a mediocre Asian horror film for American audiences is beyond me, said Glenn Kenny in Premiere. What makes even less sense is why Lionsgate hired French directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud to produce the English-language version. “More or less The Sixth Sense secondhand,” The Eye stars Jessica Alba as Sydney Wells, a blind woman who undergoes a cornea transplant to regain her vision. She wakes up after surgery with the ability to see dead people. The original might have been a hit in Hong Kong, but its good ideas are “hopelessly squandered in translation,” said Rossiter Drake in the San Francisco Examiner. Moreau and Palud have replaced any attempts at thrills with shoddy camerawork and “thunderous bumps in the night that reflect a kind of creative desperation.” Not even Alba’s hot factor can salvage this remake, said Jan Stuart in Newsday. An undeniable beauty, the actress is flawed by her “singular gift for making bad acting look effortless.” The Eye needs “someone with the personality quirks to make a dopey script look credible.” Alba is accompanied here by Parker Posey and Alessandro Nivola. One has to wonder why such capable actors signed on to such a subpar project.