Movie Review: 'Eagle Eye' severely fails high expectations

It's been a long time, all the way back to the John Travolta "epic" "Battlefield Earth," since I've seen a film so utterly incomprehensible as "Eagle Eye."

I'll admit, the previews were great, and since Steven Spielberg had his name attached, expectations were high.

But to say this movie was incomprehensible would be doing a disservice to the term "incomprehensible." Nothing in it, from frame one to the finale - which comes so painfully far down the line - makes any kind of sense whatsoever.

I am one who can suspend his disbelief if a movie calls for it and demands that sort of trust. But "Eagle Eye" does not. It's utter nonsense from start to finish.

Director D.J. Caruso has done some interesting work ("The Salton Sea," "Disturbia"), and despite a few sidesteps (his "War of the Worlds" remake), Spielberg can usually be counted on for entertainment. But they both - and anyone who read the script for this film and still thought it was a good idea - need counseling. That would certainly include stars Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan and Billy Bob Thornton.

LaBeouf plays Jerry Shaw, a Stanford dropout who makes a living working at a copy shop and playing lots of poker. At an ATM one day, he mysteriously finds he has $750,000 in his checking account. He also finds his apartment is filled (again, mysteriously) with a load of toxic, illegal chemicals. He gets a mysterious (everything in "Eagle Eye" is mysterious) phone call telling him he's going to be arrested and he needs to follow the caller's instructions. He resists at first but soon gets the message that this situation is no joke.

He's forced to do the bidding of the woman on the other end of his cell phone and soon finds he has company in his situation.

His "partner" is Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), a single mom whose son is off by himself on a trip of some sort. She gets a call from the same mysterious woman who gives her a list of instructions to follow, lest the train her son is on should (mysteriously) derail.

She and Jerry are thrown together and neither really understands how nor why (neither does the viewer for that matter). The general flaw with the premise of the film is: Why would an entity that seems to control every computer, security camera, stoplight and even every piece of construction equipment in the country need a couple of ordinary schmoes to help it meet its ends? The fact that the two characters are forced on an incomprehensibly convoluted wild-goose chase makes the all-powerful entity seem even more ludicrous.

Somehow, the whole thing seems connected to Jerry's recently deceased brother, who was a military man. It's not at all clear why Rachel was chosen.

Hot on the pair's trail is Agent Tom Morgan. Billy Bob Thornton more or less phones in his performance here. It's a paycheck, one supposes.

There are political implications to the entire mess that threaten to be interesting at times, and fans (if there are any) of "Eagle Eye" will point out that the action sequences are, um, action-packed. True enough, I guess, but a series of inane action sequences does not a serious movie make.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.[[In-content Ad]]