subject: Movie Checker Review - Eagle Eye Needs A Vision Check [print this page] The inexperienced Shia LaBeouf flick, Eagle Eye, has been something of a knock, although it's charting a somewhat sluggish line to the $100 million mark with the intention of would certify it (and its star) as such. It debuted exactly a month past as this evaluate is being in black and white, has earned almost $90 million internally and has made known viewers, reviewers and studio bean-counters alike with the intention of here is profusion of life gone in the B-movie formula.
The story itself is nothing inexperienced, building as it does on the newest strains of paranoia coursing through Western societies. The following to the point synopsis is all you need to know more or less the story arc (all three degrees of it) in this film: LaBeouf's character, Jerry, gets an revise of the medication with the intention of self-control Smith's lawyer character got in 1998's Enemy of the State, value Jerry's being tracked by satellites, his cell phone is snitching on him and each electronic device on earth has been pushed into service opposed to him.
Pawns a-plenty
Jerry is thrown at the same time with an additional pawn, Michelle Monaghan's Rachel, which puts him in a soccer-mom car designed for particular chases and crashes and the obligatory smoke and mirrors. Director D.J. Caruso, who directed LaBeouf in keep on year's Disturbia, has been accused by particular reviewers of having a Michael Bay compound (Bay directed Bad Boys, gem Harbor, Bad Boys II, Armageddon and Transformers). True adequate, here were Bay-like amounts of hard butchery, explosions, high-speed skeedaddling and fleeting ammunition. Some chi-chi, scholar critics take part in called Bay a inordinate director - of prepared designers. Caruso's film looks good, too. It a minute ago doesn't be much feeling.
You know, we must merely call something a "spoiler" if, in piece of evidence, the in a row revealed really would spoil the film designed for you. This film in no way even makes a credible warning by the side of poorness, so it can't really be stained. Still, in casing you really choose to ensure this flick, stop up interpretation at present: Spoilers to come. Lots of them.
Both Enemy of the State and Eagle Eye trade on the bizarre mixture - of urban myth, climax know-how and worldwide opinionated intrigue - with the intention of fuels the newest, all-encompassing myths of totalitarian computers. And that's what did you say? We hit upon unacceptable more or less with the intention of unflappable female voice next terminated the phones in this film: It belongs to a mainframe. See, this mainframe certain with the intention of the evil, unregenerate "chain of command" - in the U.S., not with the intention of inordinate bunch of self-governing nation-builders in serving dishes and Russia - had to be destroyed. So, using each tad and byte of its 2000-IQ silicon brain, the mainframe enlists the help of customer service reps, single moms and other "regular Jacks and Jills" who can beat up fair House security officers and outthink FBI agents. Uh-huh. Right.
The suspension of disbelief essential to take pleasure in this film is too much designed for too long. Notwithstanding the impractical notion of Jerry, LaBeouf's slacker character, outsmarting black ops personnel and slap around both cops and robbers, the totality picture of climax tech with the intention of this film presents is absurd. The inkling with the intention of cassette security systems are so general, so ubiquitously installed and so by a long way controlled from single, central source is similarly ridiculous. Real-world experience in the area of cassette surveillance is not top secret or otherwise restricted, and the totality planet can moderator designed for itself the winner of large-scale consumption of surveillance cameras in both London and other cities.
Real-world inquisitive
Into London, writes Colby Cosh of Canada's National Post, "It's what did you say? Skeptics take part in so-called all along, and at present it's certified: Cameras don't catch crooks." Reporting on a convention with the intention of took place in London in May of this time, Cosh quotation marks Detective Chief Inspector Mike Neville, head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office of Scotland Yard, as axiom with the intention of the city's research with closed-circuit television surveillance cameras (CCTV) has been "a fiasco."
Right on the heels of with the intention of article, a turn of Muslim doctors - of course, doctors, the ones who guarantee "first, fix thumbs down injury," by the side of smallest amount on this boundary of the pond - was jammed planning mayhem and murder of particular infidel Brits. CCTV did not catch the perpetrators. They gone particular cellphones in the cars they had bowed into mobile bombs and the patrol "rang them up," as they say terminated here, and not working them, as we say terminated at this point.
"Perhaps with the intention of explains," muses theNew York Times, "why this plot has not prepared inedible an additional ring-shaped of calls designed for increased cassette surveillance in Britain. Or maybe it a minute ago shows with the intention of later a decade of rotary this society into a kind of round-the-clock, communal at home film, little is gone outside the camera's eye." Whichever of these guesses is right, it doesn't say a totality quantity more or less British backbone. It is remorselessly to believe with the intention of John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith came unacceptable of with the intention of milieu.
Americans, designed for the a large amount part, don't know who John Locke is. Neither fix they know with the intention of London has more or less one-fifth of all operating CCTV cameras in the planet, or with the intention of the government is expanding the installation of speakers with persons spycams. Now, as they're taking your picture biting your nails, they can roar by the side of you, "Remove your fingers or we will convey a constable!" Video security with the intention of helps you with your private hygiene - at present there's a Big Brother move the American opinionated elite can really dig up behind.
Does this film mean no matter which?
Frankly, here is still particular remaining resistance to authority with Americans, and it may possibly take a tad longer (or an additional 9/11-level incident) designed for many Americans to roll terminated and tease dull designed for government surveillance on a 24/7 basis. What intention does a film like Eagle Eye tease in this totality, tall, simmering vat of controversy? Again, like the script itself, the message is muddled, and can be spun each which way.
There is, however, single overriding feeling more or less the moment and third tiers of natives the film introduces us to, mostly cops and FBI agents and forces. Sure, the mainframe may possibly be acting up, but they pretty much like all this inordinate gear, and they all be it seem as creepy or threatening as a Nintendo GameBoy or iPhone. There's thumbs down unruly with the know-how, it's the injury natives (or injury totalitarian computer) using it. There's thumbs down unruly with power, you a minute ago need better natives with their fingers on the nuke buttons. And maybe an "off" switch designed for the mainframe in casing it comes down with a Caligula compound and tries to take terminated the planet (again).
The argument terminated state power - assign the top men a quantity of it, restrain the most terrible impulses of man by restricting it - has no more on designed for thousands of years. But at this point the question is not treated respectfully - or every kind of "fully." D.J. And Shia take part in teamed up to manufacture a person of little consequence, fast-paced, no-cogitation-required popcorn flick with the intention of doesn't respect the subjects it brings up adequate to deal with them honestly or maturely. It's a comic charge of a film, which is miserable, since the specialty and story line unfilled profusion of opportunities designed for real insight, even particular controversy. There will be particular dramatic public debates in the imminent, more or less a minute ago how far cassette surveillance must reach in the U.S., more or less limits on open and hush-hush cassette security measures and what did you say? Kind of slip is crucial to keep government spies in check (both carbon- and silicon-based).
Unfortunately, Eagle Eye will add nothing to the conversation. Rather than chance every imaginative statement more or less the proliferation of surveillance cameras or the intrusion of government and computers into our lives, it chooses to blow up an additional car or exhibit our out-of-shape, 20-something slacker of a hero beating educated agents in hand-to-hand combat. The height of unreality, single might say. Too bad the film didn't take a shot by the side of dealing with the actuality of cassette surveillance by the world's governments. Perhaps we must pause designed for the sequel.
