Well, I finally got around to watching Eagle Eye as part of my July 4th LaBeouf binge. I spent the holiday by myself, so I turned to movies to keep me company, watching Transformers, then booking it to a late showing of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, then wrapping up the evening with a shot of Eagle Eye at about 4:00am.
Anyway, the movie was far better than I thought it would be.
As I mentioned in my Revenge of the Fallen review, I am a stupid-huge fan of Shia LaBeouf, and this was one movie that I meant to see, but I just never got around to it. The movie is a cautionary tale, one that shows us the dark side of Big Brother and an all-knowing entity with the power to act on what it knows. As we find out early in the movie, the "eagle eye" is actually a computer, one that has access to every data source in the world - your social networking activities, shopping habits, credit card records, every camera hooked to a network, and, well, everything imaginable that is hooked to any sort of network. Think of this as being a bit like Enemy of the State, but instead of just sending in the troops, this computer has the ability to control anything attached to a network. This becomes readily apparent as the computer changes shipping locations on certain packages, controls the flow of baggage in an airport, fiddles with power lines, hijacks cranes and computers and cell phones, etc, etc.
As a cautionary tale, it is a little creepy, though it is outdated. I mean, Enemy of the State did it how many years ago? But as a movie, this succeeds in spades.
Of course, LaBeouf gives the movie his particular brand of awesome. His primary character, Jerry Shaw (he's also the twin brother Ethan Shaw) isn't the kind of character he usually plays - we see some of the trademark quick wit that's readily available in his movies, but for the most part, Jerry's kind of a dick through a good portion of the movie. We eventually warm up to him as he grows as a person. It was a new direction for one of his characters, but it was interesting. As always, the role was acted exceptionally well. One of the things that makes LaBeouf such an interesting actor is the seeming ease that he covers such a wide range of emotions. In this movie, for example, we see a dick, a brother, an angry son, and a guy with a big heart - we see anger, tears, joy, terror, and exhaustion - we also see immaturity growing into maturity, a disregard for others, as well as a deep and moving compassion. Very few actors cover such a wide scope of emotion as well as he does.
Jerry is thrown in with Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) as they try to find out what is going on. All the while, they are being pursued by Agent Thomas Morgan of the FBI (Billy Bob Thornton) and Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) as they try to fit together the pieces of a large and convoluted puzzle. There are many interesting twists in the movie as the characters' stories and backgrounds come together to show us the master plan behind it all. Watching the characters desperately try to fit all these pieces together themselves is a joy, and once you reach the end, the movie does a nice job of tying up all the loose ends.
Like I said, one of the things that makes this movie great is the way all the little pieces come together to ultimately show you the Eagle Eye's master plan. This was revelaed at a good pace; I wanted to keep watching just to see how it would all go down. The other thing the movie succeeds admirably at is making the computer scary. It can see you everywhere, can hear anything you're saying, can find you anywhere, and it can act accordingly. This isn't just a computer that's going to send in the troops, as I mentioned earlier. It's creepy in a way that Hal (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) is creepy.
There are some things that made me scratch my head here, and it's one of the reasons I don't appreciate the movie as a cautionary tale as much as I feel I could have. For example, in one part of the movie, the computer is controlling cranes in a dockside construction site. These cranes are apparently hooked up to a network so they can be remotely controlled. I ahve never heard of remote controlled cranes at any construction site, so this seemed a bit far-fetched to me. Of course, I may be wrong; such cranes could exist, but it was a little distracting. Also, at one point, the computer reads the vibrations from a cup of coffee to determine what people are talking about. I know techology exists for listening to vibrations through windows and such, but reading those vibrations?
Anyway, these things aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, even as I watched it in the wee hours of the morning. It's a great thrill ride, backed up by a solid story. Oh, and as an additional plus, it was produced by the brilliant minds who wrote Star Trek, Transformers, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Most anything these two are involved with turns out to be great - they're another reason to give this a try.
I definitely recommend checking it out. It's cheap at Wal-Mart and I imagine Netflix has plenty in stock.
Score: 8.0/10.0
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