Ryan McNeil
I believe movies like EAGLE EYE are like cinematic junk food. One can live on the healthy or gourmet all they wish, but they should never be above indulging in junk food every once in a while. Unfortunately, the drawback is that junk food can leave you unfulfilled. Worse, you can find yourself sitting there with an empty package, a few pounds heavier, with a greasy feeling in your guts. I’ll never understand why something that seems so tasty needs to leave you feeling so lousy.
The events of EAGLE EYE are set in motion when a highly sophisticated surveillance and intelligence system named Aria. In the prologue, we watch as Aria is used to potentially identify a terrorist in Afghanistan. Aria comes back with an I.D. match of only 51%. Undeterred, the American Executive Branch orders the hit. Amazingly, for a scene that seemed so removed from what I knew of the plot, much of the rest of the story hinges on these five opening Shia-free minutes.
Not long after the assassination, two innocent Americans are yanked from their everyday and “activated”. First Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), a clerk at a copymat who gets arrested for terrorist activities after coming home to an apartment full of weapons, manuals, schematics, and explosives. Then Rachael Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), a paralegal who has put her son on a train for a class trip to Washington, only to be then threatened with his kidnapping.
They are thrown into the mix together by a mysterious puppetmaster. This all-knowing, all-seeing entity co-ordinates their every move. It has the power to swing construction cranes, control traffic lights, tap into surveillance cameras, and call to or from any phone it wants. The eagle eyed mastermind pushes Jerry and Rachael toward a very nonspecific mission, but one they can both tell won’t end well.
The mission? I’d rather not say. The villain? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
EAGLE EYE starts off well enough, with the omnipotent button pushing making for some rather cool, albeit completely unbelievable moments. The cat-and-mouse game that Gerry and Rachael are forced into is actually quite amusing for an hour or so. Then we get the painfully good news/bad news moment of the revelation of our evil genius. The good news is that its motives and reasoning are actually quite scary because there is a twisted bit of plausibility to them drawn from the American Constitution and The Patriot Act. The bad news is that the identity of big bad is astoundingly absurd – and worse -ripped off from a far better movie.
This “Oh no they didn’t” moment kicks off a downward spiral that brings us through the movie’s final hour. I was left asking myself what was worse – a seemingly unbeatable villain, or a gaggle of characters too stupid to notice its one glaring weakness. To my dismay, I got my answer. Neither of those are nearly as bad as an ending that chickens out right when it’s getting interesting in the effort not to bum the audience out too hard.
The funny thing about the failure of EAGLE EYE is that every actor in it did the best they could with the stupidity they were given. Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Billy-Bob Thornton, Michael Chiklis and especially Shia LaBeouf dive into the panicky/broody/running/shooting nonsense well enough to give it all a fighting chance. Pity that this story of Big Brother’s bastard child doesn’t give them much to fight for. Pity too, since I’d wager there was a pretty decent tasting Happy Meal somewhere in the greasy mess that this script became.
Man, this movie was disappointing. The trailers made it look so cool, but it just didnt live up to it. Good review though