Eagle Eye Review

FreshMmm's been offline for a couple weeks now, and after only a few posts too! Sorry about that, real life came a knocking and we had to answer. Anyways, we have some old reviews to get pumped out in the ensuing days, so please bear with us while we try to right the ship. First up in our glorious(?) return...Eagle Eye!

Shia LaBeouf builds on his growing stardom by starring in the Steven Spielberg-produced blockbuster Eagle Eye. LaBeouf reteams with his Disturbia director D.J. Caruso in this outing, and is joined this time by Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Chiklis, Rosario Dawson, and Anthony Mackie. It's quite a cast with a lot of opportunity for greatness, but it's a shame that these great talents came together for what amounts to a fun but ultimately mindless summer blockbuster. Except this was released in September (Yeah, I don't get it either).

The gist: Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf), an underachiever leading an otherwise ordinary life, gets into quite the shakeup when he stumbles into his dingy apartment one night to find it filled with various terrorist paraphernalia--guns, ammunition, explosives, surveillance equipment, etc. You guys have seen the trailer so you know this part--he doesn't run when he's told to, instead he get's arrested and has to be busted out again, with all of this seemingly set up by the strange woman on the phone. She guides his escape until he meets up with single mother Rachel Holloman (Monaghan), and they must work together to not only survive, but to try and figure out why they've been thrown into the middle of this muddling mess.

And what a mess indeed. The high-octane escape scenes and subsequent journey to various destinations across the country leave room for tons of adrenaline-pumping scenes and big pretty explosions, but as you leave the theater and come off your endorphin high, you're going to start wondering what the hell was the point of it all. You see, the action scenes may be fun, but they're so haphazardly (and in many instances, idiotically) linked together that it becomes hard to actually appreciate the movie. Sure, I love a big fancy blockbuster as much as the next guy, but at least make it FRESH (wink wink)! A lot of this movie feels either contrived or completely forced, and the general result can be summed up by a comment I overheard from a fellow moviegoer: "Well....I guess that was cool."

Shia and Michelle are very charismatic and watchable actors, they do a tremendous job of keeping this movie afloat. But that's just the thing--this movie very much wants to stink, but there's just enough to keep us onboard, to keep us watching to the end. Thornton, Mackie and Chiklis do commendable work as government agents of varying types, but I felt like Dawson's character was a little pallid, and she wasn't given much to do. That said, I find it hard to fault any of the actors for having to work with flawed material, so I won't go too much into their performances other than to say that everyone was passably competent. Another gripe I had was the casting of Shia LaBeouf. Personally, I really enjoy his work. He's a big part of why Transformers is watchable; the man exudes charm. He knows how to tackle that fine line between dork and hero, and he has the unquantifiable talent of making at least two or three otherwise irredeemably cheesy lines work per movie. But here he's almost out-of-place, miscast. Mostly it's because of his age. In most (or is it all?) of the movies he's starred in recently, he's appeared as a teenager. Here, we're supposed to buy him as a twentysomething because...he grew a neat beard? Fine, this is typical Hollywood magic at work, suspension of disbelief and all that, great, I get it. But when he's put next to Monaghan, Thornton, and the others, his youth somehow becomes extremely present. This is especially apparent when we're expected to see faint traces of a budding romance between him and Monaghan. Granted, this is a relatively small gripe that I did actually get used to as the movie went on, but when it's put in a movie that already has a slew of other believability issues and scenes that abuse the ridiculous meter, it becomes a flagship issue that really highlights the movie's biggest flaw--it's completely ridiculous, bordering on inane.

The hoops the characters are asked to jump through grow sillier and sillier. As you watch, there's the hope that there's going to be some payoff that will explain and give meaning to all of the tasks the two leads are forced to complete, but when we get there, we find out that in fact the payoff is exactly what we suspected since the end of the first act, and nothing more. We hope some slick twist will come up, but really, none ever surface. This cheapens the experience, and has the doubly negative effect of underscoring how utterly pointless the bulk of the movie is. This is lazy storytelling, and essentially a series of clumsily set up set-pieces that are big on explosions, but heavy on routine. The result is that everything feels tired, trite, and stale.

And the whole technophobic message is no exception. There's nothing new here, just the same old yarn about how technology is taking over our lives; the boundary between technology helping our lives run smoother and actually running our lives is becomes increasingly blurred. Yawn. And c'mon, when the big reveal about all of this is done in the media center of a Circuit City, you know you've run out of decent ideas.

Still, there's some merit in the charisma of the cast. They keep this movie watchable, and if you're willing to turn your brain off (and I mean really off) for two hours, you'll have a good time. I know I did. It was only after the lights came on and I quit wetting my pants from all the gunshots and car crashes that I realized my head was hurting not from the 8-channel surround sound, but the sheer silliness of the movie.

The Verdict: 15 (out of 21) - Not sure if you'd hit it, and there's a good chance you'll regret it if you do, but it sure looks enticing...

As usual, links for interest and purchase can be found below.

'Til next time folks!