“EAGLE EYE”
Starring Shia LaBeouf
& Michelle Monaghan
Released: Sept. 26, 2008

WATCH THE TRAILER

A thriller that succeeds at being scary and exciting at times despite the painfully obvious plot twists.

TWO MINUTES INTO the movie, my friend turned to me and said aloud what we'd both been thinking: "Are we even in the right theater?"

It was an easy mistake to make. After watching the trailer, I had been expecting an awesome, Bourne-esque action thriller starring one of my favorite actors, Shia LaBeouf.

Instead, the beginning of "Eagle Eye" focused on Defense Secretary Callister (played by Michael Chiklis) as he agonized whether or not to order an anti-terrorist strike based off uncertain intelligence. It was interesting, I guess, but not what I'd been hoping for.

Once Shia finally appeared onscreen, we and the other two people in the theater were subjected to a good 20 minutes of his character's backstory.

Jerry Shaw is a loser who dropped out of Stanford, works at an office supply store, and basically just doesn't have a very interesting life.

This is in contrast to his identical twin brother, Ethan Shaw, a genius who was in the Air Force before his sudden death in a freak traffic accident. Of course, Jerry shows up late to the funeral.

A couple of incredibly pointless scenes follow, but the action gets rolling when Jerry returns to his apartment and encounters a number of mysterious boxes that someone has left there. At this point, I became reminded of every action movie I've seen recently, and not in a good way.

Jerry opens the mysterious boxes to find a whole bunch of stuff he's never seen before: guns, ammunition, flight manuals, money, and passports with his face and an assumed name. In "The Bourne Identity," Jason Bourne opens his mysterious bank account to find money, a gun, important-looking papers, and passports with his face and an assumed name.

After Jerry gets freaked out by all of the mysterious boxes, his phone rings. The calm, female voice on the telephone informs him that the FBI will be arriving immediately and that she can help him escape if he follows certain very specific directions.

Jerry doubts the voice and is eventually captured. In "The Matrix," a voice on Neo's phone informs him that government agents are searching his office building for him, and that he can help him escape if he follows certain very specific directions. Neo doubts the voice and is eventually captured.

There are more too-obvious parallels, including a shakily filmed car chase reminiscent of "Cloverfield," a briefcase with a bomb-like countdown transported by tour bus like in "Traitor," and an all-knowing evil computer system that even looks a lot like HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

As the film got into its second hour, however, I started to forget about the unoriginality. The actors did a much better job at bringing emotion to their characters, and I genuinely began to care about what happened to them.

Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) plays a single mom who the voice on the phone controls through threatening her young son, Sam (Cameron Boyce). While carrying out the voice's instructions, Jerry and Rachel are also on the run from the law, having been framed for terrorism.

Special Agent Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) and Agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton), lead the task force trying to capture Jerry and Rachel, but they, too, are only pawns in a larger game.

Perez and Morgan are very sympathetic characters, even though they work for "the bad guys." All of the characters were three-dimensional and interesting, including the bigger villains, who have motivations more complex than the trite "I want more power!!! Muhahaha" line used way too often in this sort of movie.

I don't want to give too much of the film away, because the plot twists that I did not expect redeemed it to some extent despite the clichéd setup. "Eagle Eye" seemed to just get better as it went on, building up to a truly inspired climax … or so I thought.

This movie would have gotten four out of five stars from me had it not been for the last scene, which completely ruined all the emotion of the ending and seemed cowardly, as if the scriptwriters couldn't bring themselves to do something original.

As it is, the film deserves only three stars, although the rating may be misleading. Other lower-rated movies suffered from a hopelessly flawed premise; "Eagle Eye" failed to take advantage of the opportunities it seemed to promise.

I would still recommend seeing it, but wait for the DVD.

"Eagle Eye" is currently playing at the Goodrich Savoy 16, 232 W. Burwash, Savoy, and the Beverly 18, 910 Meijers Drive, Champaign.

"Eagle Eye" AT A GLANCE

• Starring: Shia LaBeouf & Michelle Monaghan
• Directed by: D.J. Caruso
• Written by: John Glenn & Travis Wright
• Genre: Action, Mystery, Thriller
• Rated: PG-13
• Runtime: 118 min.
• Release date: Sept. 26, 2008
• Summary (from IMDb): Jerry and Rachel are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move.