Shawn's Eagle Eye Review

2008 Movie #113 - Eagle Eye

I saw this one on opening night as well. I was immediatly intrigued by the first teaser trailer for this when it came out way back before I think Indiana Jones. The premise sounded pretty cool, if not a little much like Enemy of the State. Either way I was excited for it, even when the bad/terrible reviews started to flood in. In the end, I gotta say this looks like it's going to be one of those movies I'll have to defend because damn it, I liked it.

The premise is no doubt a little silly and really, really requires you to stretch your imagination, but hey I'm a fan of Prison Break and it does the same thing x10 every single week. If you can buy into the premise and are willing to simply go along for the ride, then chances are you're going to enjoy this one.

The breaking point for people seems to be when the reveal of the villain arrives. It's at this moment where your opinion of the entire movie will pretty much be decided right then and there. You're either going to see this plot point and go "Oh yea? Ok let's see where they're going with this" or "Are you fucking kidding me?! That's the most retarded shit ever! DONE!" I was the first one so the movie was never ruined for me.

The cast does fine, although I'm starting to reach my breaking point with Shia. He's not really a bad actor, I'm just not convinced he has any sort of range whatsoever. Let's look at his film resume so far. Constantine, I Robot, Disturbia, Transformers, Indiana Jones 4 and now this one. If you were to watch all of those movies back to back, you would never be able to tell the difference between one Shia character to the next. He pretty much plays the exact same role in all of his movies so I'm really waiting for him to try something different. Then we'll see just why he's being called the next big thing. However next up I think he has Transformers 2, so we could be waiting a while yet.

The action scenes are a highlight in this one. They too require a heavy dose of imagination stretching. They almost make Live Free or Die Hard seem entirely plausable. They're fun and exciting though, so once again I was willing to buy into it.

The ending would probably be my main complaint about the movie, but I'm not going to go into it here. It just felt a little too Spielberg-y, but then he was involved with the making of this movie so I guess it really isn't that surprising.

This movie was a really pleasant surprise for me and I had a hell of a lot of fun watching it. It will definitely be a blu-ray purchase for me when it's released in a few months. This one gets a high score and gets added to my list of "I don't get why people all hate it" movies.

****/5