Eagle Eye

Impressions before seeing it
I remember being intrigued by the mystery of the trailer (who is calling these people and giving them random instructions, and why?) but then I didn't hear a lot of good things after its release so I didn't seek it out until it appeared on TV last night.

How was it?
The "cold opening" before the titles didn't draw me in because it was just some boring stuff about the American government trying to catch Middle Eastern terrorists (plus it had Michael Chiklis, who has never impressed me in anything and probably never will unless I decide to watch The Shield), but then afterwards we get to Shia LaBeouf playing Poker and it instantly becomes fun, because he is the kind of actor who is fun to watch. It gets even better when Jerry (LaBeouf) is framed via a huge stash of weapons planted in his apartment and he starts receiving phone calls from a woman's voice (an uncredited Julianne Moore) giving him specific and often dangerous instructions. Michelle Monaghan's character also starts getting these calls. I love stories where weird and mysterious things like this are going on - and perhaps it was also because the phonecalls reminded me of the early Matrix scenes where Morpheus calls Neo to guide him out of the office - so this was right up my alley.

However, once they started answering questions and revealing things, Eagle Eye lost its appeal for me. Not just because the mystery was gone, but because the answers were uninteresting, preachy, and a little silly. I found myself thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger's The 6th Day, and how the first 20-30 minutes of it are actually cool and then it gets dumber and funnier as time goes on. But I think Eagle Eye is generally a better film than that one. There are some good performances here - I really enjoyed the scene where Billy Bob Thornton has Shia LaBeouf in an interrogation room and is trying to use a combination of good cop (without a bad cop) and reverse psychology to make him admit he is a terrorist - and there is fun to be had, I was just disappointed with the last half.

Recommendation
If, like me, you enjoy those "WTF is going on?!" type plots, then you might get a kick out of at least the first half. Eagle Eye is entertaining and, I suppose, not too shabby if you don't mind it jumping on the "our government is problematic" bandwagon like a lot of things are doing these days.