Not even bad in a good way

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is a decent if off-beat and slightly implausible thriller, if you ignore the side plot. Emma has been blind since the age of eight when her psychopathic mother shoved her head into a mirror. Now, two decades or so on, she has a cornea transplant and can see again, although it takes some time for her vision to return properly. She also has something akin to Charles Bonnet Syndrome because not only is she suffering hallucinations but she sees things a day or so after they happen. What does every ex-blind girl need to make her day? A serial killer, of course. This guy is also a necrophiliac, and when a young woman in her building is murdered she becomes the only living witness, of sorts. The police fear he is after her, as indeed he is, but not for that reason. Eventually, they figure it out, and between then and the climax, there is a significant red herring.

Blink is directed by Michael Apted and written by Dana Stevens. It stars Madeleine Stowe, Aidan Quinn, James Remar, Paul Dillon, Peter Friedman, Bruce A. Young and Laurie Metcalfe. Music is by Brad Fiedel and cinematography by Dante Spinotti. Story sees Stowe as Emma Brody, who after being blind for 20 years receives a double cornea transplant that mostly restores her sight. However, she's subject to something known as "retroactive vision" which means that what her blurry vision at first sees doesn't register to the brain sometime later. A problem, now, because there has been a murder committed upstairs at her apartment complex and she's the only "eye" witness to the murderer.It's all set up to be a standard woman in peril thriller, the kind that drops into the cinema on a yearly basis. But thanks to some technical smarts and a terrific performance by Stowe, Blink is one of the better films from this particular sub-genre. It's a bit saggy in the middle, where, probably thanks to the success of Basic Instint and Sea of Love in the five years previously, Apted and co try to turn it into an "erotic" thriller as Stowe and Quinn's surly copper form a relationship, but it's genuinely tense and the novelty of Emma's unusual affliction never wears thin.Apted and his team have devised a unique visual effect that lets us see the world through Emma's unusual eyes, and the result is very unsettling. Blurry focus blends with wobbly vision and this allows for scary moments that stretch the concept across the films running time. It's of course a hokey premise, and the formula at the core of the plot is nothing new, but the character of Emma, coupled with her "affliction" is. Emma is no poor victim looking for sympathy, she's spunky, sexy and not suffering fools gladly. She lives as an independent, plays fiddle in a Celtic rock band (The Drovers playing themselves) and is full of feminine whiles. Stowe really gets to grips with the character and convinces fully. Quinn is OK, plays sarcastic and moody with ease, while Apted has a keen eye for the Chicago locale and Spinotti's photography is gorgeous in colour tones.It needed a better, more frantic, ending, and that over played mid-section stops it from being from the top draw of thrillers, but otherwise it's well worth a look for potential first time viewers. 7/10

DVDs are wonderful things. Picking up this one recently gives me an opportunity to review yet another favorite from way back when.Madeleine Stowe features as Emma Brody, a gifted violinist living in Chicago, who was blinded as a young girl by her abusive mother. The story proper opens with her receiving corneal transplants after 20 or so years of blindness. This restores her sight, but her mind is so overwhelmed by the resulting flood of images that it operates a kind of delay in its processing so that she only perceives certain things some time after actually seeing them. One of the images so processed is that of a possible murderer…I have no idea whether this phenomenon is actually possible medically, but I didn't care much. The story is otherwise rather conventional, though its treatment is vivid. British-born Michael Apted knows his stuff and conveys a startling impression of Emma's situation and the Chicago she lives in.Stowe turns in a convincing, if sometimes rather shrill, performance, while Aidan Quinn is also good as the detective more or less in charge of the case, with whom Emma has a romance of sorts. The supporting players, including the excellent James Remar, are effective. I must admit though that the expression "red shirt" crossed my mind when a not very bright uniformed officer (named Crowe and played by Matt Roth) was assigned to keep an eye on Emma. My suspicions were more than justified.A satisfying thriller nevertheless – adequate plot, excellent playing, good music, and lively direction. Who could want more?Rating: 7/10.

The main reason I saw this film was not because I thought the plot sounded interesting, or even because of the fact that it stars the beautiful Madeleine Stowe; the reason I saw it is purely down to the fact that I remembered seeing posters for it in the video store when I was a kid. With such a nonchalant viewing reason behind me, it probably wont come as a surprise that I wasn't expecting a lot from this film; and it's a good job as Blink is a highly disappointing thriller with numerous problems and very little to recommend it for. The plot is not particularly original, and focuses on the idea of a blind woman in peril. There is a slight twist on this theme; as the woman in this film is not quite blind; in fact, she is the benefactor of a breakthrough 'eye transplant', which re-enables her sight after over twenty years of being blind. A side effect of this treatment is the fact that she sees some things 'by memory', and this is a problem when she apparently witnesses a murder as she's not sure if it's real or just flashback...The film would be described a 'psychological thriller', and the reason why these films are often hit and miss is the main problem with this one. A film like this really needs a central character that is easy to get into; and while I believe that Madeleine Stowe is a great actress, she's not given the room to do much with this role. The plotting is not good at all, and is often all over the place; and too much of the film focuses on the tentative (and boring) relationship between the central character and a policeman on the case. This relationship feels extremely phoney, and since it makes up a large proportion of the running time of the film; it becomes a pretty big problem. There are a few decent scenes; Stowe is very good despite the poor material, though I would have preferred a lot more suspense, given that this is really supposed to be a thriller. The ending is pulled off fairly nicely, though its impact is lessened by the tepid film that preceded it. For a far better take on a similar theme, see the fantastic 'Wait Until Dark', and skip this.