Eagle Eye Movie Blurb by Shale September 26, 2008 Those who have read my "reviews" know that they are lacking all the technical comparison stuff with other movies and the official indicators of good movie making, etc. I guess I should dust off my adage, "I enjoy bad movies" for this one because I thoroughly enjoyed Eagle Eye. Not so for about 75% of reviewers according to Rottentomatoes. And, even those reviewers who liked it said stuff like: "The movie doesn't have three brain cells to rub together, but the premise carries it a long way." (Mike LaSalle SF Chronicle) "It's entertaining, if you're OK with it not making a ton of sense." (Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press) and "Que filminho estúpido. E divertido" (Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena). OK, for those who don't know Spanish, Pablo said what the others said, it's a stupid movie but entertaining. As you may have seen in the trailers, Jerry (Shia Labeouf) is getting mysterious calls telling him outrageous things to do as outrageous things are happening all around him. It is as if someone is not only able to see his every move but also control the environment. He is set up as a terrorist and the FBI is on to him. SPOILER NOTICE: While I have revealed no more than other reviewers here, I think it may spoil some of the unfolding of events in this movie, not indicated in the trailers so consider this a mild spoiler warning. I suppose it is common knowledge revealed by the trailers that there are some computer savvy people behind all this, or a super AI computer like Skynet or V.I.K.I. This theme has been done before, and it is the prophetic horror story of our times that these amazing ubiquitous devices that have attached themselves firmly into our lives have given us the nightmares from Terminator to Matrix to I Robot. Anyhow, this version of Skynet is Eagle Eye, whose persona is named ARIEL. That's about all that needs to be said of the plot of this movie. Jerry is forced to jump thru hoops and off skyscrapers, being given direction and guidance and having things fall into place by the all-controlling computer. He is thrown together with a single mom, Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) who is also receiving phone calls threatening her son and the two of them go from running chases to multiple car chase/pileups on a mysterious mission of the controller's design. Jerry and Rachel On the Run On the case is an FBI agent (Billy Bob Thornton) who starts seeing that our hapless slacker Jerry could not be the brains behind all this mayhem. He is aided by Air Force OSI agent (Rosario Dawson) and they are the principle pursuers who eventually uncover the purpose of HAL, uh ... I mean ARIEL. OSI & FBI On the Case I really like Shia LaBeouf as an everyman action hero who may be an actual actor. There is one emotional scene where he is crying that I thought was really convincing. If you like lots of action on the par with Transformers and a tried and true sci-fi story, go see this movie. It is summer matinee fare in the fall movie season.
I really enjoyed it-I think his crying scene was so raw and real-that is the stuff actors work all their careers for, and it comes so naturally to Shia. Overall-it was entertaining, although maybe not intellectually stimulating...
