"Eagle Eye" Film Review

I am not "activated."

Great performances. Recycled plot.

Eagle Eye is a 2008 action film directed by D.J. Caruso and produced by a number of big Hollywood names such as Steven Spielberg. The film stars Shia LeBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Billy Bob Thornton, Ethan Embry, Anthony Mackie, Michael Chiklis, and Cameron Boyce.

I went into the theater having only seen the brief teaser trailers. I haven’t seen the extended trailers, so I basically had no clue what Eagle Eye was about, except that Shia LeBeouf and Michelle Monaghan’s characters are in for a wild, dangerous ride thanks to an anonymous antagonist.

The antagonist is given away maybe 30 minutes into the film. After that, pretty much everything that happens is based on the antagonist’s powers and the escapades that the main characters have to go through to do its bidding. Once the audience knows about the main antagonist, it’s pretty obvious what must be done to stop it.


(Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers. You are duly warned.)


Shia LeBeouf’s performance is pretty much constantly phenomenal. Especially the scenes where he visits his twin’s burial, and the scene where he purposely risked his life to stop the bomb. Intense, heartbreaking, and goosebumps worthy. Michelle Monaghan was great too, her character was understandably lost, and her expressive eyes showed the vulnerability that comes with that territory. Rosario Dawson and Billy Bob Thornton performed brilliantly as well. Overall, the actors were amazing.

The plot however, is as mentioned above, recycled. I’ve seen, heard, and watched about computers running amok and brutally doing what they are programmed to do about a hundred times before. Of course, with a Steven Spielberg film, you can expect thrilling action and a frenetic pacing that can hold your interest throughout the entire film. Still, after the audience knows that the villain is a computer, everything else in Eagle Eye becomes somewhat predictable. But scanning voice vibration echoes from a coffee cup? Really? I’m an impressionable person, but even us young ones have to draw the line between suspension of disbelief and simple disbelief. Almost everything, if not actually everything, in the movie is technologically impossible. I hope. Sometimes the computer’s (called Aria) abilities are so ridiculous, that you just can’t help but shake your head in mixed annoyance and disappointment. D.J. Caruso did such a good job with the fast pace of the movie that it covers the massively ludicrous plot.

It was recently reported that Eagle Eye is the 4th highest opening movie of all time in the month of September. Understandable, because the cast is amazing. Other than that, Eagle Eye is an entertaining movie with great cast performances, great action and effects, and a below-okay plot.

It’s only thanks to the cast, specifically Shia LeBeouf, that Eagle Eye is worth watching in my book.