Eagle Eye is a box-office smash wrought from the cast-iron molds of every sci-fi suspense thriller to precede it. Remember The Matrix Revolutions highway chase scene? Check. Remember all of The Fugitive with Tommy Lee Jones’s good ol’ Southern marshall posturing? Billy Bob Thornton has it covered in Eagle Eye. Remember the strange omnipotent forces controlling future fates in Minority Report? Eagle Eye’s got that too. Throw in some mistaken identity and reluctant heroism from first Matrix flick to make it all even.
But where those movies intrigued us by throwing an unsuspecting erstwhile anti-hero into the mix, daring him to solve the world’s biggest travesty, Eagle Eye fails miserably at finding character strength. Shia Lebeouf has a difficult time making the transition from doe-eyed goof to action lead only because Matt Damon, Jason Statham and Will Smith are his main competition. As Jerry Shaw, the loser’s loser, Lebeouf earns audience sympathy with his quizzical looks and occasional outbursts against the cell phone voice giving him directives. The love interest plot unfolds clumsily with Michelle Monaghan doing her best scared woman running to match Lebeouf’s scared man running.
Eagle Eye does hit some marks with its somewhat preachy theme of government ineptitude and deception dominating the second half of the film. Rather than hammering the point home, Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) and Major William Bowman (Anthony Mackie) play sacrificial lambs in the conspiracy chase game. Their loyalty to government employers spells out the naivete of their disposition, while showing the importance of order in a complicated haze of mendacity. Eagle Eye is sure to draw more fans to theaters to see the string of explosions but once the smoke clears…see your local bootlegger for an advance copy.
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