This review contains mild spoilers but honestly if you couldn't figure them out on your own you're empty inside and should probably just lock yourself in your room and cry tears of sorrow into your pillows over your worthless existence while Linkin Park's "Crawling" soothes you to sleep.
Directed By: D.J. Caruso
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Julianne Moore (uncredited)
Other Actors of Note: Rosario Dawson, Billy Boy Thornton, Michael Chiklis, Ethan Embry, William Sadler
Plot: Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Monaghan) are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situation, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move. As the situation escalates, these two ordinary people become the country's most wanted fugitives, who must work together to discover what is really happening -– and more importantly, why.
You know those movies that are good but so incredibly unrealistic that even flipping your brain to "Die Hard" mode doesn't quite fix the fact that there isn't a thing that's the least bit plausible about the entire fucking thing?
You may have experienced this feeling whilst watching films like "Sunshine", "The Core", or anything that features Stephen Seagal in a prominent role. And whilst the movie is mind numbingly insulting to any semblence of intelligence you might hold you find a supreme enjoyment in coming up with snarky comments to say about it on the imaginary movie blog in your head.
Fortunately this movie blog is neither imaginary nor in my head. And my time has come...
"Eagle Eye" is a political thriller in much the same way that "No Country For Old Men" is a feel good comedy. Don't get me wrong it tries really hard to be intelligent but half the time I was just expecting Shia LaBeouf to drive a police car into a helicopter. (For reference, Billy Bob Thornton does actually crash a Reaper spy plane with a half-ton pick-up truck.
Shia LaBeouf plays Jerry Shaw, a no-name slacker with no path and life and a fear of shaving. He is suddenly called by his mother after three years away from home to be told that his twin brother Ethan (Shia LaBeouf) has just died.
Across town Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) sends her son off to a band performance in Washington D.C. with the help of her deadbeat ex-husband. Both Jerry and Rachel get calls telling them that they have been "activated" accompanied by orders (Jerry gets framed for terrorism and Rachel gets her son's life threatened.)
Well it eventually turns out that the evil voice on the phone (Julianne Moore) is some self-aware super-computer along the lines of Skynet, Shodan, GLaDOS, HAL 9000, AUTO, and Oprah. Complete with giant white orb on stock with glowing red eye. Unfortunately after making their super computer to "gather intelligence" they mistakenly install a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista: Vengeful Cunt Edition into her software and she decides to make the executive branch assplode.
Let me put a little disclaimer for some of you. I know a lot of you think Shia LaBeouf is overused and untalented, but since you're all entitled to my opinion and that I would rather hammer roofing nails into my dick then listen to any of you fuckers bitch and moan about it one more time I'm going to kindly ask you to either A) shut up or B) Put a cat in a pillowcase, shake it up, and then put it over your head.
Shia LaBeouf gives probably one of the finer performances of his career. Jerry is a believable character and there wasn't one bit of his performance that I found to be hard to take. (Which is good because most of the rest of the movie was.) And for those who claim that LaBeouf can only play more or less one role, he does a fine job in a role that is nothing like his parts in "Transformers", "Disturbia", or "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" other than that he plays a relatively normal guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Michelle Monaghan who I am glad to see in an A list movie that isn't "The Heartbreak Kid" does a wonderful job in the role of Rachel. Her performance as a troubled single mother with no regard for anything other than the safety of her own child is wonderfully done.
Billy Bob Thornton plays an FBI agent who's a bit too action movie-y for the film's own good. He uses a pick-up truck to blow up a Reaper spy plane. Though he does have some rather humorous lines, particularly "You'd better be looking at me because I'm a suspect because if you don't figure this out I'm going to make sure you're all demoted to a job that requires you to touch shit with your hands."
Rosario Dawson plays some sort of Airforce special agent or something. What I found particularly odd is that she starts out the movie with a pale complexion (I didn't think it could possibly be Rosario Dawson due to the fact that she was too white) but grows darker as the film progresses. She plays her role a bit too seriously and by the time she's stabbing ARI's giant HAL eye with a metal pole after crawling out of an inexplicable pool of water. (Because jamming a piece of metal in something electircal whilst soaking wet is always a good idea.) She is ultimately an unneccesary part of the movie and her performance is rather inconsequential.
Julianne Moore (Which Rosario Dawson has confirmed is the voice of ARI) is fittingly creepy as the malevolent super computer. Not as creepy as Shodan but at least creepier than GLADoS, though there were points when I expected her to goad America to its doom with empty promises of freedom and cake.
And this brings us to Defense Secretery Vic Mackey. I have no idea why anybody thought it was good to put Michael Chiklis in a role where he doesn't bust someone's face in. This is not to say I think Michael Chiklis is a bad actor, but come on that's like Secretery of State Gilbert Gottfried! Some actors fill niches and Michael Chiklis' nich'e involves acting intense and breaking things.
The story of "Eagle Eye" is so incredibly implausible that I don't even know where to start. ARI for some reason can pretty much control anything on "the grid" to the point of being able to read ripples on a glass of water to detirmine what's being spoken and making power lines spontaneously bust and fall on Iranian-Americans that are apparently have skin made of magnesium.
This is the kind of movie that just encourages the lunatics living in wooded cabins with a barn full of bullets and a gigantic stash of hoarded beans to believe all the paranoid delusions they've always had. As if "Shooter" didn't already give them an exscuse to live in the woods and talk on CB radios because the United States government built a hybrid between HAL 9000 and Cerebro in the basement of the pentagon.
Speaking of Ari, I have no idea who came up with this plot device but it was a bigger show stopper than the loom in "Wanted." About a million and one evil super computer jokes popped into my head about how Ari was going to send Governor Schwarzenneger back to the past to kill Rosario Dawson's mother, or how I expected Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive" to play over the end credits. (It totally should have.)
My favorite part is when Shia LeBeouf takes three bullets to the torso (hitting his heart, lung, and spine respectively) and is shown later in a scene maybe two lakes later looking no worse for wear in a fucking ARM SLING! Couldn't they have at least done the prerequisite wheelchair and chest wound withbandages with suit jacket wrapped around his shoulders and a bandage serving as a crude headband for no particular reason?
And Shia wins out in the end and becomes a national hero and gets to bang Michelle Monaghan which is worth it because she is incredibly hot.
...even if she did sleep with Chook Chutney.
"Eagle Eye" (aka "Live Free or Die Hard 2: Live Free or Die Harderer" or "2008: A Spaced Oddity") is a pretty mindless movie that'll be something nice to watch on a saturday afternoon on HBO.
I give "Eagle Eye" a 3 out of 5. It's entertaining but utterly forgettable, rent it sometime.
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