The Eye (2008/Lionsgate Blu-ray
+ DVD)
Picture:
A-/B Sound: A-/B Extras: C Film: D
Hollywood
has been ripping off ideas from around the world for just about as long as
anyone can remember and the recent trend is to take Asian horror films and
convert them for American audiences. However, in the transformation process
something is loss because rather than be unique, stylized, fresh ideas, they
are typically gutted C-grade material that is void of anything that made the
original memorable or watchable, and with some commercial successes like The Ring, there are more excuses to
make these films and roll the lucky die yet again. This time we get Jessica
Alba in The Eye, which is a remake
from the 2002 film Gin Gwai AKA The Eye
from Hong Kong (I reviewed that film several years ago here http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/551/Eye,+The+(Japanese).
This
re-tread is just about as awful as many of the others that attempt to recycle
the material and pass it off as something inventive or creative. Casting Jessica Alba was obviously an attempt
to get a young and popular actress into the lead role in order to get some
attention. Plus giving the film a PG-13 rating enabled the film to be
accessible to a younger audience as well, but nothing can save the bland
screenplay penned by Sebastian Gutierrez and the direction of inexperienced
filmmaker David Moreau and this seems like a pairing that enables more studio
control. Even when a film is remade with
the right people involved there are many challenges that are hard to overcome,
which was certainly the case with some of the better remakes like 2002’s Insomnia, which was directed by a very
competent Christopher Nolan and even starred Robin Williams and Al Pacino. No matter how hard they attempted to stick
close to the original 1997 film, it seems like just a shadow of it, where it
retained some of the physical attributes of the original, but could not
maintain much of the emotion depth that the original film had, the same is true
here and to an even more extreme.
The
storyline is quite simple. Alba plays a
woman who for nearly her entire life was blind, but due to the advancement in
technology gets a transplant to restore her vision completely. Her eyesight does not come back 100% right
away, she has to gradually gain her sight back as first things are very blurry
and over the course of time her body makes the necessary adjustments to compensate
and integrate her new peepers. However,
what she didn’t think she would be getting with her new eyesight was horrible
visions that seem to haunt her and how a psychological battle begins as she is
tormented with these images and cannot seem to maintain control of her
imagination. The original film and
concept is a rather good one, especially as it makes some interesting
statements about how we might not always get what we think when we wish for
something or how the things that we lack are not always things that we need. The cost of her sight may not be worth the
price that it is costing her emotions.
Alba
looks like she could have phoned this performance in, especially as she tries
to over-act in many of the scenes as you can easily see how she is attempting
to make this venture down a more reputable path and re-establish herself as not
just scenery, but a true actress. The
mistake that she failed to realize is that a bomb like this is exactly what
ruins actors in milliseconds, especially ones that do not have the long-term
credibility and resume to compensate.
That’s not so say that Alba has not had some great successes as she
typically chooses good projects to partake in, especially Sin City and of course The
Fantastic Four. Hopefully she will
learn from these mistakes!
The DVD and
Blu-ray issued for this film are miles apart in many respects. Both present the film in the 2.35 X 1 scope
framing with the Blu-ray presentation being 1080p High Definition, which by
doing a quick A/B comparison quickly shows the limitation that DVD always had
and still has. The DVD is rather drab in
its presentation of the film and while it looks sharp and detailed, but it also
appears compressed and soft. The Blu-ray
on the other hand looks much sharper with more accurate colors and gives a very
three-dimensional appearance to the film.
Dark colors really stand out and the full color spectrum is realized on
the Blu-ray disc, which is really apparent in several key scenes as we see the
depth of color and the gradient hues rather than muddy color reproduction.
If the
picture quality doesn’t stun you, than the audio track on the Blu-ray certainly
will, especially in direct comparison to the bland Dolby 5.1 on the DVD. The Blu-ray steps it up a notch again with a
DTS-HD 7.1 audio track that is incredibly detailed with some truly great sonics
at times. While this particular title
might not serve as a great demo disc, the audio and picture alone might lend
themselves to at least a quick tour of the capabilities of what Blu-ray can
offer. The soundfield is very deep and
expansive, while dialogue is evenly placed and gives a three-dimensional
experience to match the visuals.
For
another comparison there is also a standard definition PC digital copy of the
film on a separate disc that is compatible with iTunes and Windows Media
Player. It’s about on-par in many
respects with the DVD, but might be a bit sharper overall, but then again many
factors will come into play with the type of graphics card and monitor that are
used.
There are
some other featurettes as well to add to the overall value of the 2-disc
Blu-ray and DVD editions as well as some deleted scenes, so those that are fans
of this film will have lots to enjoy.
- Nate Goss
