LuckyWillEagle Eye - Looking Sharp
October 8th 2008 13:39
This is a film to be enjoyed if the ‘Open Mind’ policy is employed while viewing. Eagle Eye sees actor Shia LaBeouf and his adopted film-father, Steven Spielberg, reunite for their 3rd film in just two years. Since their meeting in 2007 for the production of Transformers, the two have been jointly involved in Indiana Jones 4, Eagle Eye and, next year, Transformers 2, all starring LaBeouf and presided over by Spielberg. This latest endeavour sees them returning to their native roots; LaBeouf is, once again, occupying the familiar role of the misguided teen, turned world class hero; Spielberg is telling his favourite tale about fugitives running from a corrupt government and the audience is provided with a non-stop action adventure that places completely unbelievable stunts into a satisfyingly acceptable environment. It’s like a combination of Enemy of the State meets Die Hard 4 meets I,Robot. Interestingly LaBeouf scored a supporting role in I,Robot as well, so his current performance should be merely revision.
The story centres around two main characters who are drawn together by a mysterious voice. Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) is the black sheep of a respected family and lives a life of seclusion and ambiguity, which directly contrasts that of his highly decorated military twin brother. After his brother’s unexpected death, Jerry soon becomes entangled in a fabricated terrorist plot and must follow the voice of a mysterious woman if he is to clear his name and escape the powerful political agendas of a pursuing government agency while uncovering the truth about his sibling’s demise. His partner in crime is Rachel Holloman, played my Michelle Monaghan, a single mum who is also forced to obey the commands of Big Sister or risk losing her only child. Their controller tracks their actions via webcams, security cameras, mobile phones, and basically anything else with an electrical signal, and uses any means necessary to get to them.
It is really mind boggling to think about how they get out of some situations and some of the chases are quite ingenious. The easiest way to tell if you’ll like this movie is to watch another Spielberg production, Minority Report. In that film, there is a scene in which Tom Cruise is led through a shopping centre by a psychic who tells him when to stop, go, pick something up, and drop it again. At the time these seem like pointless tasks, however each simple direction has unseen consequences that allow him to blindly escape incredible circumstances. Steven Spielberg has basically fleshed this scene out to a full 2 hours and it works.
As expected, there is a great car chase in which Jerry and Michelle are trying to escape a fleet of police cars headed by their relentless pursuer, FBI agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). Directed by their pimped up GPS, they navigate blind corners, handbrake turns, and run red lights missing nearby traffic by inches as the female voice guides their escape. You just have to sit back and admire it; however there was one annoying thing that really detracted from the experience of this chase and that was the cheap camera shots used to film it. Instead of pulling back to give a full view of what’s going on in the chase, the director, D.J.Caruso, gives zoomed in shots of blurry mirrors, hubcaps and occasionally a full door. It’s an effect that allows him to stretch the footage of one stunt to look like four or five but ultimately it just ends up annoying the audience because you can’t really see anything.
There are a lot of twists in this film which, at times can be a little predictable, but the chase scenes are just great fun to watch and more than make up for it. In particular, Thornton chases the fugitives into a baggage terminal and they battle with him along the many conveyer belts that zigzag behind the scenes. While this goes on, their puppet master does her best to separate them from the FBI agent by controlling the directions of the conveyer belt and anything else nearby that operates on remote.
As you would expect all the actors do a fantastic job and really carry the film. There are explosions a plenty; twists you won’t see coming; and twists that you will. But as long as you don’t try and find fault with the film, it will try not to make them obvious to you and you should walk away with a smile.
Rating 3.5 mysterious phone calls/ 5
Will
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