Jessica Alba does not show signs of improving as an actress in "The Eye," which is effectively frightening but not an outstanding example of its genre. (Gannett News Service, Richard Foreman/Lionsgate/File)

Jessica Alba sure is easy to look at, but as a leading lady she's often hard to watch.

In "The Eye," her acting hasn't improved, but luckily for us she's not asked to do much more than stand there and look scared.

Alba plays Sydney Wells, a blind woman who regains her sight after a corneal transplant.

As in most scary movies of this ilk, when she asks her doctor where the corneas came from, the response is a terse "Uh..... why does it matter?" Usually this is the first sign that things are going to get freaky.

And they do, as Sydney starts having mysterious nightmares, and begins seeing ghosts and the shadowy figures that come to take them to the underworld. Sydney then tries to solve the mystery of just whose eyes she has. From there it becomes a derivative of "The Sixth Sense," minus the twisty ending, but with a little more mystery.

We're not talking earth-shaking drama here, but as a PG-13 horror movie it delivers its share of scares without a lot of gore. The shadow monsters are effectively creepy, and the film carries the Asian horror tradition of creepy children.

The film is a remake of a Chinese movie by the same name. This version doesn't make many of the silly divergences of other horror remakes, and the story is relatively faithful, with only minor tweaks to the plot to reflect Western sensibilities.

The story does lose a little of its mystique in bringing it to Los Angeles, though it tries to recapture some of it by sending Sydney and her doctor (Alessandro Nivola, "Junebug") to Mexico. It comes off as a little sillier than the original, but it's a nice effort.

The cast is more or less nondescript and bland. Indie darling Parker Posey ("Superman Returns") brightens the film with her turn as Sydney's guilt-ridden sister. She's not given much to do, and disappears toward the end, but she brings the film up when she's there.

The ghost effects are realistic and spooky enough, though there's never really a sense that Sydney (or anyone else) is in any sort of danger. The monsters just make faces at Sydney as they escort the recently deceased. They do become a bit more menacing in the film's climactic sequence on a busy highway.

Co-directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud don't do enough to heighten the conflict between Sydney and the shadow figures to make them adversaries. Instead, they go for a foreboding sense of dread; its effectiveness is hit-or-miss.

In the pantheon of horror films, "The Eye" should go down neither as the best nor the worst of the genre. But if you're looking for a safe, effective fright flick, you really could do worse.

Joe's Verdict

Rating: Three stars
In a word: Diverting.
Movie details:
Rated: PG-13 for violence/terror and disturbing content.
Running time: 97 minutes.
Starring: Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola.
Director: David Moreau, Xavier Palud.