Being a big fan of the original Hong Kong film, I detested the idea of a remake ever since it was announced a few years ago. At the time Ringu director Hideo Nakata was set to helm with Renée Zellweger toplining the flick, back when it was still with Paramount. Almost a year later, the project went into "turnaround" and Lionsgate picked it up, leaving Renée to drop out and Hideo replaced by French helmers David Moreau and Xavier Palud, who worked on the film Them (Ills).

The worst news came when Jessica Alba was announced to star, because I know at that point this would definitely not be a good movie. Written by Sebastian Gutierrez (Gothika, Snakes on a Plane), the project was described early on as pretty much an Americanized version of the original, maintaining most of the scares and essentially just moving the location over to the States.

I knew the movie wouldn't be much different than the original, but I didn't realize how similar the two would be until actually viewing it. The story follows Jessica Alba as a blind violinist who receives an eye transplant from an unknown donor in hopes of restoring her sight. The operation is a success, but not without side effects. Of course, I'm talking about the fact that she can now see spirits of the dead walking around and scaring the hell out of her.

Not only that, but she can also see tall and skinny dark demonic figures that seem to escort the dead, and they don't like being spotted. The woman (accompanied by her Dr. that's supposed to help her cope with her new found sight) sets out to find the identity of this mysterious donor, as she may be key to why she's able to see the dead.

If you're familiar with the original, then you'll know that the premise has pretty much remained the same. In fact, aside from the location, the only difference from the two films are a couple ghost sequences, which were modified to fit an American audience, while we're also introduced to a couple new scares, none of which do the job they're set out to do.

I admit, the original movie gave me a couple good scares when I first saw it (keep in mind I was sitting alone in a dark room with the headphones on and the volume up high), but this movie didn't even give me goose bumps. The scares that worked in the original are simply laughable in this film. If you've seen the first flick then you pretty much know everything that happens in the movie. To make matters worse, we're delivered a typical Americanized climax.

I didn't care for the characters, the scares didn't work, and I was bored the entire time since I knew exactly what would happen next. If you've seen the original film, then skip this mess.