THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Eagle Eye"
All Aria, All The Time: Orwellian Will, With No Way Out In The Windy City
By
Omar P.L. Moore/September 26, 2008
Shia LaBeouf as Jerry Shaw and Michelle
Monaghan as Rachel Hollomon in D.J. Caruso's film "Eagle Eye", which opened
across North America today. (Photo: Dreamworks/Paramount)
"Eagle Eye", which opened across the U.S.
and Canada today, is a smorgasbord of celluloid that tries to do too much and
ends up doing little to hook its audience. For sure, D.J. Caruso's
film is sometimes a clever mix of action and sci-fi thriller but its four
writers muddy the waters, preventing "Eagle Eye" from being coherent and
consistently effective as a drama. (For the record, the writers are John
Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott.)
Interestingly enough, Steven Spielberg executive produced the film, which stars
his "Indiana Jones" star Shia LaBeouf as Jerry Shaw, the slacker identical twin
of a recently deceased U.S. government employee. Mr. Spielberg's "Minority
Report" (2002) was a snappier, sharper, more potent film, and Mr. Caruso's film
mashes together the better parts of films like "War Games" and "2001: A Space
Odyssey" and the so-so parts of films like "The Matrix". Still, "Eagle
Eye", for all its bombast and wildness, has a fair amount of dead ends and loose
ones -- mainly due to the writing. There are unresolved matters -- how and
why Jerry is suddenly deluged with money and equipment early on, and what his
twin brother -- whom Mr. LaBeouf also plays -- did to deserve his situation.
Mr. LaBeouf displays charisma as Jerry and flashes the impulsive,
anti-authoritarian streak that has guided the characters he has played on screen
("Disturbia", "Transformers", "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal
Skull") and the personality that he has adopted off screen (recent car accident
in Los Angeles). He utters a handful of humorous one liners and mixes
things up with an FBI chief investigator (Billy Bob Thornton) who also has some
choice words for some of his fellow officers. The investigator works in
tandem with Agent Perez (Rosario Dawson) of the Air Force and they ardently
follow Jerry, who is now on the run after being framed. Jerry soon finds
company in Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), similarly thrown into perilous and
extralegal situations courtesy of a rogue U.S. government computer named ARIA
(the name HAL 9000 has already been taken, some 40 years ago), whose crudely
seductive automaton female voice commands the petrified duo to do ridiculous
things at a moment's notice.
The holes in the story are nearly rescued by the events that have transpired not
only via George Orwell's 1984 novel of the late 1950's but also in the years
since September 11, 2001, with vast government surveillance on Americans within
the United States, eavesdropping at every turn, with executive power and war
powers heightening. "Eagle Eye" is most effective because of the society
and the realities of today that surround it and not necessarily because the film
is substantively noteworthy. If you like car chases and crashes, you will
love Mr. Caruso's film, which also features Michael Chiklis as the U.S.
Secretary of Defense and Anthony Mackie as a major in the U.S. military working
for the Defense Secretary at the Pentagon.
"Eagle Eye" is an eyeful and it employs rote special effects. It may have
been better to leave some of the effects on the shelf and make the actors in the
film act, not constantly react. Entertaining and occasionally exciting
"Eagle Eye" takes off , but even with its kinetics it never really soars.
"Eagle Eye" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for
intense sequences of action and violence, and for language. The film's
running time is one hour and 58 minutes.
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