Glaucoma is Better Than This

This will be brief: The Eye sucks. The Eye with Jessica Alba is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong horror film with the same name. The main narrative between both films is pretty close: a blind female violinist gets new corneal transplants — in the American remake it is a woman named Syndey Wells (Alba). The transplants give her back her sight but carry with them a macabre side effect — she now unwillingly sees ghosts from the past and present, and apocalyptic visions of the future.
This movie provides further evidence that American remakes of well-made Asian horror movies need to die. The only American remake of an Asian horror movie that was actually good was The Ring (2002), which featured the multi-talented and angelically beautiful Naomi Watts as well as the awesome directorial hand of Gore Verbinski (director of all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies). Every American remake of an Asian horror movie since then has gotten progressively worse and worse: Dark Water (remake of Honogurai mizu no soko kara), The Grudge (remake of Ju-on), Pulse (remake of Kairo), the abysmal One Missed Call (remake of Chakushin Ari) and now The Eye.
I am an avid cinephile and can find a way to enjoy almost any movie, even ones that are “bad” but entertaining like Mr. Deeds, The Waterboy, Undercover Brother and especially the corny but immensely awesome 80’s action classic Commando. However my skills were absolutely useless when it came to The Eye. There is absolutely nothing remotely entertaining or engaging in this film. I acquired a new record of cinematic boredom, a record previously held by Balls of Fury.
Asian horror films construct and convey the sense of fear to the viewer by immersing them in an unsettling atmosphere, usually featuring a little girl with hair covering her face that cannot talk or can only talk in ominous puerile metaphors; American horror films tend to just yell “Boo!!!!” a lot.
The Eye tries to do both but leans more towards the latter. In the end, it comes off as a weird hybrid that offers absolutely nothing to recommend to anybody, neither artistically nor entertainment wise.
Now, I’ve got nothing else to say about The Eye other than it sucks and should not be seen by anybody. So I’m going to pull a move that might draw the ire of all active feminists on campus — you know, the ones who advocate changing the spelling of “women” to “womyn” — and for the purpose of plain entertainment do a superficial review of the only good component that The Eye has — the marvelous star who possesses the uncanny ability to radiate absolute pulchritude on a superhuman level: Jessica Alba! She should probably be The Cornell Daily’s Sun’s “Superhero of the Month.”
What is her power you ask? She’s hot. I would almost venture to propose the she be named “Superhero of the Year,” but everybody knows that title is going to be taken by Batman once the absolutely awesome film The Dark Knight hits theatres on July 18 (which has the deceased Heath Ledger’s last performance as the Joker — may he forever R.I.P).
Let’s now do a small survey of Jessica Alba’s superhuman powers, a little chip off the block. I’m going to pull a few Stan Lee’s here and there — if the science I cite to explain Jessica Alba’s power does not make sense, then that means that I made it up.
Her Hips are made out of Gold.
Well, sort of. The Ancient Greeks discovered that aesthetically pleasing geometries can be mathematically described with the “Golden Ratio” — a number that is approximately 1.618. Apparently any geometry that is found in the “Golden Ratio” proportion is considered to be really pretty to look at, a fact which supposedly informed the artistic creations of several Renaissance painters and architects. What does this have to do with Jessica Alba though? Apparently, the waist-to-hip ratio is a key feature in a woman’s physique that determines physical attractiveness and what is Jessica Alba’s respective ratio you might ask? Yep, it is closely related to the Golden ratio. This proves that Jessica Alba’s hips are really made out of gold. And they don’t lie.
Her Hair is made out of Silk
Yes, this is completely true. Let us look at the key physical properties of silk: it’s shiny, really pretty to look at, has strong fiber and can create electrical effects when proper interaction with a metal is facilitated. Lets now look at Jessica Alba’s hair: her hair is shiny and very pretty to look at. She swims a lot in Into the Blue and her hair never loses its composure or shape, validating its presence of strong fibers. And whenever anybody looks at her hair, sparks fly, verifying its electrical properties. Conclusion: her hair is made out of silk. This is indeed superhuman, as no material scientist in the world today has yet found a way to effectively make silk support hair replacement therapy — but Jessica Alba has: she grows it.
Well this is all I can write in the space allotted to me by The Sun’s editorial staff. Stay tuned next month for my March Superhero, Short Round from Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom! You know, the “Doctor Jones!!!” kid. Why him of all people? I have absolutely no idea.
In all seriousness though, Jessica Alba has mentioned in interviews that she wants to be taken more seriously as an actress on par with Natalie Portman and not just a cinematic sex kitten. While The Eye is a noble attempt on her part to jump into serious dramatic roles, the movie just has so many things wrong with it that it effectively inhibits the serious acting abilities that she wants show. This is to Alba: you got my support to be a serious actress, but before you do find a better agent and some better movies.