A non-stop action thriller, with explosions, car chases and CGI, Eagle Eye sees Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) and Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) thrown together by a mystery female who can seemingly track their every move in order to participate in a plot to bring down the Executive Branch of the US Government.
brilliant...
I really enjoyed Eagle Eye, it's been a while since I've seen a film that is so balls-out energetic and non-stop from beginning to end. I enjoyed the way the plot was peeled back, layer after layer, and the mystery behind the voice making the lead characters commit armed robberies and resist arrest by the FBI was skillfully crafted and full of surprises. While Eagle Eye probably isn't to everyone's tastes and wouldn't win any awards for subtlety, it's so fast-paced and slickly produced that the plot holes fly by and you don't care so much. It helps that LaBeouf and Monoghan are sparky and utterly watchable, while Billy Bob Thornton, Rosario Dawson and Michael Chiklis provide excellent support - particularly Thornton, who's humour and approach adds depth to his role. The overarching plot uses fear of terrorism and the ubiquity of technology in everyday life alongside the US constitution to justify killing the president and his cabinet, and it's a thought-provoking idea, although there's not too much time to think about it as cranes crash through windows, drones fly through tunnels and the leads are chased along airport conveyor belts.
Some of the things that an all-powerful computer can do here are ridiculous, for example how exactly does an artificial intelligence decouple a power-cable in order to crash down and electrocute somebody? How does a computer move a train independently backwards and forwards, and manages all of this without crashing or waiting for an egg-timer to finish turning? I think with a film this action-packed it would be churlish to suspend disbelief one moment and then be aghast at implausability the next, it's all or nothing really, so these are only minor gripes. In terms of plotting though, at the end I would have been happier if the Hollywood ending was rejected in favour of actually killing off one of the main characters. It would have felt more satisfying emotionally, less of a cheat.
briefly...
A blast from start to finish, with the added bonus of likable performances and pertinent plotting.
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