Review of Eagle Eye (2008) by Dave I — 07 Sep 2014

2007 and 2008 were the big breakthrough of one of the most hated actors working today, Shia LaBeouf, thanks to two not well received summer blockbusters, Transformers and Temple of the Cristal Skull, and a better received film, "Disturbia". Knowing this, I approached "Eagle Eye" with curiosity, wanting to know in which of those two categories it fitted.

Jerry Shaw is a college dropout who learns his twin brother Ethan, a US Air force, has been killed. After learning from his brother´s demise, Jerry mysteriously receives a huge amount of money, finds his apartment filled with guns, ammunition, passports and classified DOD documents, and receives a phone call from woman which starts giving him instructions and eventually leads him to a single mother called Rachel Holloman. Together they try to find out who this woman is before she makes them do a "terrorist attack" on the USA government.

With a synopsis like that, you know that "Eagle Eye" aimed to provide an entertaining experience and nothing more but instead director D.J.Caruso made a unremarkable film, to say the least. The biggest problem is that "Eagle Eye" counts with one of the dumbest stories I ever seen on a film, it kept a little of my interest for the first half hour but then goes to absurd and predictable territory for the rest of its run time by ripping off superior films like Terminator for no logical reason; the acting is barely passable, it counts with fast pacing that tires to hide the silliness of its story and bland and idiotic characters. However, despite all those terrible elements, "Eagle Eye" still manages to be a little entertaining thanks to adequately shot and constant action scenes, competently done cinematography, good enough CGI and an average directing by D.J.Caruso that does an admirable job of distracting the audience from the silly plot for most of its relatively short runtime.

Despite its preposterous plot and Shia´s performance, "Eagle Eye" somehow managed to provide a weak entertaining experience, thanks to its action scenes. It's by no means a good/fun film but it isn't as horrible as most people consider it.