Alba snoozes through "The Eye"

In "The Eye," which opened Friday, Jessica Alba plays a blind violinist who has her sight restored through corneal transplants. And what does she see when the bandages come off? Dead people.

Alba gives a flat performance as a gifted woman who has another gift bestowed upon her when her sight returns.

She can't read stop signs or the expressions on people's faces. She doesn't know what a latte looks like, or the face of her sister (Parker Posey). Her disturbed trip back into the world of sight shows promise.

And then that thread has to be abandoned because this is a ghost story. Sydney (Alba) starts spotting spirits in the hospital, dying people being escorted into the afterlife by shrieking wraiths.

There are unintentional laughs here and there. Sydney's best response to all this is smashing the lights of her apartment and covering her face in a blindfold. Everybody knows if I can't see them, they can't see me! No, it's not exactly "Wait Until Dark."

But as we crawl toward the dimwitted and "rational" wrap-up and conclusion, we can appreciate the better, if overly familiar movie that might have come into focus in "The Eye." And we appreciate that, as horror movies go, seeing isn't believing.