Eagle Eye

From the director of disturbia, I know this movie will be intense and thrilling. Shia Labeouf and D.J. Caruso with Steven Spielberg come up with a second feature movie. This is bigger, more intense and more action than disturbia. D.J. Caruso proves that he can create a more intense movie with cars exploding with a bigger budget. Eagle Eye is intense and thrilling but the story is a bit weird and simple.

The story: The story is not original as we probably heard this kind of stories before. Though it is not original, I like it for its thrills and suspense. I have seen better action than in this. The plot- Shia plays Jerry Shaw in the movie who is following orders from an unknown caller. Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) is involved in the insane orders. They start running, going from one place and other and collect stuffs. There is exploding action in between. There is a mild twist added- the caller. For an intense action movie, it is good. But if I consider it for its plot, it is just mildly interesting.

Overall: If you have seen disturbia, you might want to catch the director's second feature. You want intense movies, here is one. Those looking for interesting and realistic plus not laughable plot, this probably may make you lift an eyebrow, thinking how the heck the caller do this and that. Whatever it is, it made my time passed.

Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) is a slacker underachiever. His twin brother dies. Then strange things start happening like a fortune in his bank account, massive amounts of weapons in his apartment, a phone call telling him to leave before the police, and the FBI crashing into his home. Jerry is arrested by Agent Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) is a single mom. A phone call gives her instructions threatening to kill her son. Meanwhile the phone calls keep coming guiding the pair to some unknown objective.

There is some good action going on, and a whole lot of outrageous insanity. It struggles between realism and paranoid fantasy. The movie aims to go so fast with so much action that the audience doesn't have time to think about logic or reason. Then it gets even more complicated and it's too much. It seems like a simple story would be so much better. The movie kept going and going. At some point in the last half hour, the movie needs to end. It's just got too much.

I think this is possibly the third film this year that has directly involved a higher power turning 'insufficient funds' into a considerable amount, and while this comparison is valid in a sense, that's where similarities end. From the trailers I was imagining Eagle Eye to be a cross between The Matrix and Wanted, but it's not… not at all. No, it is neither creatively similar nor anywhere near the same quality. So despite some similarities, Eagle Eye at least delivers an experience that is refreshing, but at the same time familiar. Not much risk-taking is implemented here; there are virtually no new ideas of any kind, and the themes present have all been battered to death in countless novels and films that have frankly done the job far more successfully. Read aloud, the script could easily be interpreted to be a techno-phobe's transcription of a recurring nightmare; the government tracking us all on phones, cameras lip-reading us etc. etc. and for the most part, that is how the movie plays out. While these elements leave an experience that will always have you guessing as to where the movie is going next, the eventual climax of the film boils down to character rather than plot, and as a result of spotty characterisation, the film eventually falls flat. Despite some major issues however, Eagle Eye still manages to retain a sense of spectacle, and the story, although mostly a science-fiction dud for the most part, does move forward at a decent rate. In this regard, the movie makes for good popcorn watching, but not much else.

Following meek photo-copy shop clerk Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) as he takes the road after being wrongly suspected as a terrorist by the FBI, Eagle Eye is standard political thriller material; there's the hard-ass government officials, the misunderstood civilian who is inevitably on his way to save everyone, and the fragile love interest along for the ride in the form of Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan). What makes this feature at least a little more interesting than the cookie-cutter outline of thriller scripts however is that both these lead characters are being led on a mysterious journey across the country by a voice-on-a-phone who has access to all sorts of technology that governs our civilisation from computers, phones and TVs to billboards and alarm systems. Through this voice, Eagle Eye delivers its main theme of technological sabotage and paranoia; Big Brother with ones and zeroes. Of course, it's not the most original of ideas, and the movie's script plays them as obvious as can be with no desire for subtlety at all. As such, the writer's lack of anything interesting to say becomes apparent after the first act comes to an end. As far as science-fiction goes, it's standard thematic material. Again, no real developments or ideas are plugged in here for you to digest, only well established ones reiterated for your brainless entertainment.

One of the script's far more successful elements however lies in the character of Jerry, and his off-screen relationship with his recently deceased brother. Although the movie never transgresses beyond the rather a-typical successful brother/lazy brother aesthetic, the writing is focused and sharp enough to give actor LaBeouf enough material to work with. So far this year LaBeouf has proved himself a highly capable performer, and Eagle Eye does well to showcase his talents here. While his chemistry with co-star Monaghan is almost non-existent, the actor does well to cover up most of the holes in this mismatch, and in his character in order to make Jerry a sympathetic, but engaging persona to watch. As a leading man, LaBeouf still shows some restraint and doesn't ever quite improve on his less-than-charismatic performance in Transformers, but as was the case there, his small image often complements the scope of the movie.

In the end, all the characters and their developed relations do eventually come to an emotionally engaging climax that capitalises on such developments with great conviction. Of course, there's a dud of an ending that follows the real climax in order to provide picky viewers with a bow on top of their cathartic package, but it doesn't hurt the final payoff too much. Taken as a whole however, Eagle Eye certainly isn't perfect but it isn't bad either. For popcorn entertainment, director D.J. Caruso does his job well enough to create an engaging thriller that delivers some action, some character and some plot, even if it all feels a little underwhelming when put together. Anyone looking for anything but fluffy action-orientated thrills driven by mystery and spotty politics would be best to find something else to chew on; mildly enjoyable, but not entirely memorable.

• Written by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)

Steven Spielburg is just hitting out blockbusters 3 times a year at least at the moment and this outing is definitely not different. The film is exciting, well acted and has been well thought out and directed.

The film is about a slacker who gets drawn into a government scandal by a mysterious voice on a cell phone along with the mother of a young child who is performing at the white house and they eventual find themselves running from not only the machine, but the whole country of America as well. This leads to a very good movie I would definitely recommend to any movie goer.

Anyway, Shia Labeouf is very good in this film and helps hold it together with Billy Bob Thornten, who, I must admit actually did a good job in this film.

Overall, I think this film is a good watch and a good movie to watch with friends. It really does show that Steve is one of the masters of Hollywood. I rate it 74%

Eagle Eye is not the best movie I've ever seen but it's much better than some of the other junk that been out lately. Yes, it copies almost every recent political thriller and yes it rips off some other movies too, but don't most movies recently do the same. The action was good and the main characters at least were made to be real people that you could connect with. And Billy Bob Thornton was having so much fun and was at his best since Armageddon. This movie proves again that Shia LeBeouf has some talent, too bad he can't seem to stay off the tabloids. Michelle Monaghan also was very good. Unlike some of the critics I thought the ending was quite noble. 8/10