Shia LeBeouf and Michelle Monaghan have their lives disrupted by a secret government computer.
My Review: (Spoilers)
At Andrews Air Force Base, the military uses drone aircraft and cell-phone tapping to track down a possible terrorist leader at what appears to be a funeral ceremony at a middle-eastern village. The suspected terrorist’s identity cannot be verified, with a computer calculating a 51% probability that they have the right man and recommending against the mission. The Secretary of Defense (Michael Chiklis) also advises the President against the attack, saying the collateral damage is too high without confirming the suspect’s identity, but the President sides with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and authorizes the attack. A missile is fired at the funeral, killing everyone in attendance.
Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) is a clerk at Copy Cabana in Chicago. On his L ride home, a news story reports that the government can listen in through any cell-phone anywhere, even if it is turned off. He passes his number to a cute girl on the train. He stops by an ATM and tries to withdraw $100 but has insufficient funds. As he tries to sneak into his apartment, he is caught by his landlady and he tries to placate her with cash he has just won in a poker game with his coworkers though it’s not enough to cover the rent. He receives a cellphone call from his mother, and gets some bad news. After the funeral of his brother, a soldier, his father, who Jerry doesn’t have a very good relationship with, tries to talk him into returning to Stanford, but he refuses. He also refuses any money. On the way back, he finds a check for $1000 stuffed in one of the pockets of his backback.
My Review: (Spoilers)
At Andrews Air Force Base, the military uses drone aircraft and cell-phone tapping to track down a possible terrorist leader at what appears to be a funeral ceremony at a middle-eastern village. The suspected terrorist’s identity cannot be verified, with a computer calculating a 51% probability that they have the right man and recommending against the mission. The Secretary of Defense (Michael Chiklis) also advises the President against the attack, saying the collateral damage is too high without confirming the suspect’s identity, but the President sides with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and authorizes the attack. A missile is fired at the funeral, killing everyone in attendance.
Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) is a clerk at Copy Cabana in Chicago. On his L ride home, a news story reports that the government can listen in through any cell-phone anywhere, even if it is turned off. He passes his number to a cute girl on the train. He stops by an ATM and tries to withdraw $100 but has insufficient funds. As he tries to sneak into his apartment, he is caught by his landlady and he tries to placate her with cash he has just won in a poker game with his coworkers though it’s not enough to cover the rent. He receives a cellphone call from his mother, and gets some bad news. After the funeral of his brother, a soldier, his father, who Jerry doesn’t have a very good relationship with, tries to talk him into returning to Stanford, but he refuses. He also refuses any money. On the way back, he finds a check for $1000 stuffed in one of the pockets of his backback.
Shia LaBoeuf as Jerry ShawA woman (Michelle Monaghan) rushes her young son (Cameron Boyce) to catch a train for a music school trip. The boy’s father arrives separately, and the couple are apparently separated. The boy gets on the train. As the woman leaves, a suspicious-looking middle-eastern man (Anthony Azizi) spots the boy’s trumpet case in the checked baggage and steals it.
Michelle Monaghan as Rachel Holloman and Cameron Boyce as her son SamAt an ATM, Jerry deposits the $1000 check, only to discover that his bank balance is now $751,000 and the machine starts spitting out $20 bills. Jerry gathers up the bills and rushes home, where the landlady tells him a lot of packages have arrived for him. He settles the rent for the next couple of months and finds his apartment packed with boxes and barrels with hazard warnings. He starts going through them and finds weapons, government documents and passports. He gets a call from an unknown number and a woman’s voice (Julianne Moore, uncredited) tells him that he’s been activated and that the FBI will arrive in 30 seconds and he has to flee and get to the Mathis train station. He doesn’t cooperate and FBI agents bust in and arrest him.
Jerry finds some unexpected deliveries in his apartmentJerry is interrogated by Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton), Supervising Agent for the Joint Terrorism Task Force, who asks him questions about his relationship with his twin brother, an Air Force Academy graduate with impressive qualifications, who Jerry hadn’t seen in 3 years. Agent Morgan doesn’t believe that Jerry doesn’t know what’s going on, and tells him he’s in a lot of trouble.
The young mother is out drinking with her friends in a bar, taking advantage of not having a son to worry about for a little while. She gets a call from her son and goes outside to answer. Instead of her son, she hears the same woman’s voice Jerry heard on the phone, telling her (her name is Rachel Holloman) that she’s been activated and that they will derail her son Sam’s train if she doesn’t do what they say. She doesn’t really understand what’s going on, and is directed to a black Porsche Cayenne with the keys in the ignition. She calls 911 to report the call, but is disconnected, and when she tries to call 911 again, the woman’s voice tells her that her phone is being monitored and if she disobeys again her son will die.
The young mother is out drinking with her friends in a bar, taking advantage of not having a son to worry about for a little while. She gets a call from her son and goes outside to answer. Instead of her son, she hears the same woman’s voice Jerry heard on the phone, telling her (her name is Rachel Holloman) that she’s been activated and that they will derail her son Sam’s train if she doesn’t do what they say. She doesn’t really understand what’s going on, and is directed to a black Porsche Cayenne with the keys in the ignition. She calls 911 to report the call, but is disconnected, and when she tries to call 911 again, the woman’s voice tells her that her phone is being monitored and if she disobeys again her son will die.
Rachel gets a disturbing phone callAgent Morgan is paid a visit by Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) from Air Force Special Investigations. She reports that Air Force Officer Ethan Shaw, Jerry’s twin brother, died when a truck ran a light at the corner of Constitution & 10th in NW Washington DC. Perez thinks Jerry is a decoy and wants her own chance to talk to him, while Morgan thinks Ethan and Jerry were both involved in terrorism, and refuses to let Perez see Jerry.
Rosario Dawson as Zoe Perez and Billy Bob Thornton as Tom MorganMeanwhile, the FBI receives a fax authorizing Jerry’s one phone call. When he makes the call, he is connected to the woman, who tells Jerry she will help him escape and to get down on the floor in 5 seconds, Jerry complies at the last second and a construction tower crane smashes into the building. Readerboards on adjacent buildings tells Jerry to jump to the L platform below and then get on a train. Once on the train, a nearby sleeping passenger’s phone rings with message telling Jerry to answer it. The woman’s voice tells him to stay on the train for 3 stops and then get off. Jerry gets off the train at the next stop and immediately gets on another train going the opposite direction. The phone rings with a text message telling him he disobeyed. The train suddenly stops and reverses direction. The phone rings again, and the woman’s voice tells Jerry to get out at the next stop and get into a waiting black Porsche Cayenne as Jerry hangs up on the voice. Every other passenger’s phone rings and the woman’s voice tells them all Jerry is a terrorist. As the passengers and onboard police approach, the doors open as the train passes the platform without stopping and Jerry jumps out. Pursued by police, he finds Rachel in the Cayenne. She thinks he is responsible for her son, but the police interrupt their argument and as they drive, the woman’s voice over the car’s navigation system guides them through the city in an exciting chase seen, changing traffic lights in their path, at one point taking over the car’s cruise control to guide them through an intersection against traffic and leading them through a waterfront scrapyard where the cranes take care of all the pursuing police. Jerry and Rachel are deposited on a passing garbage barge as the car is dropped in the water.
Jerry and Rachel on the garbage bargeMorgan and Perez have the Coast Guard retrieve the car and Perez is summoned back to Washington to investigate Ethan’s quarters. On the garbage barge, Jerry gets a call with instructions telling him to walk to a certain milepost and wait with “the female” when the barge docks.
At the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, a new military explosive is demonstrated that is 80 times more powerful than C4. The explosive is in the form of a crystal and uses a sonic valve as a trigger. Two cases of the shipping explosive are diverted. At a music repair shop, the man who stole Rachel’s son’s trumpet receives the valve at his music shop, installs it in the boy’s trumpet and has it sent back to Amtrak baggage claim. Meanwhile, a jeweler receives the explosive crystal and, not knowing what it is, uses it in a necklace. Both are following the instructions of the female voice on the phone.
Jerry and Rachel walk under high-tension power lines, telling each other their stories. Rachel suspects that Jerry’s brother is involved, but Jerry won’t believe it. A van comes up behind them and the man who stole the trumpet gets out upset. He tries to give Jerry and Rachel a paper with an address and throws them the keys to the van, shouting that he is done. Jerry gets a call telling him to stop the man from leaving or he will die. The man won’t listen and a powerline insulator explodes, causing a line to fall and hit the man, vaporizing him. The phone rings again and Jerry is told desertion is not an option and they are to get to 72 West 56th Street in Indianapolis by 11am.
At Ethan Shaw’s quarters at Andrews Air Force Base, Perez finds soldiers boxing up his belongings on the orders of an unnamed 2-star general. She orders them to stop and takes over. She finds a mysterious piece of computer hardware belonging to the department of defense. She tries to use it and finds it is a system called Eagle Eye and it requires a Minuteman ID. She guesses “JERRY” which is incorrect. The computer tells her it is now being tracked by the Department of Defense and will shut down.
If you thought the Blue Screen of Death was bad...When Perez leaves Ethan’s quarters she is met by Air Force Security officers who ask her to come with them. Meanwhile, Morgan has found the remains of the man who stole the trumpet and his men have identified him as music store owner Ranim Khalid, an American citizen of Iranian descent with a clean record.
On the way to Indianapolis, Jerry and Rachel hear on the radio that there have been attacks on American embassies in response to the attack seen at the beginning of the film, and that domestic attacks are expected. Jerry and Rachel have a fight, where she reveals that she could have gone with her son to see him play at his concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, but she didn’t. They arrive at their destination 2 minutes late, and are told to steal a briefcase from two men at an armored truck, which, with help from the voice on the phone they do, and they escape on a tour bus of Japanese tourists. Once on the bus, a panel on the briefcase opens to reveal a timer counting down. They suspect it’s a bomb.
Perez is taken to the Pentagon to meet with Secretary of Defense Callister, who takes her to a secret level of the building where he shows her a project called Eagle Eye.
Perez with Secretary of Defense CallisterThe tour bus carrying Jerry and Rachael arrives at a shopping mall to give the tourists 30 minutes to shop. A payphone rings and Jerry answers; the woman’s voice telling them to go to Macy’s, pick up gift cards at the customer service desk and buy new clothes and get back on the bus. Jerry says he’s done taking orders over the phone and hangs up. The pay phone rings seconds later; Jerry answers and is told to go to the home theater center in Circuit City. There, Jerry and Rachael shown that they have been communicating with a government computer that uses government, purchasing, cellphone and internet records and surveillance cameras to create a profile of everyone in the country. The computer reveals that Jerry’s brother Ethan actually had a counterintelligence assignment, and his press assignment Jerry knew about was just a cover. With his death, Jerry and Rachel have been “drafted” into government service. Reluctantly, Jerry agrees to continue and he and Rachel go to Macy’s to buy new clothes. While she in is the dressing room, Rachel is giver her own assignment over the phone. She doesn’t want to do it, but if she doesn’t her son will die. At the same time, at the Pentagon, Perez learns that Eagle Eye is the Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analyst (ARIIA) computer that, unknown to her, has been directing Jerry and Rachel. ARIIA is still beta testing. It was ARIIA that recommended against the attack against the suspected terrorist. Jerry’s brother Ethan was assigned to Eagle Eye as a “Minuteman,” trained to act if the computer detected an imminent threat. On the night he died, he had left his post 3 minutes before his shift ended. Callister leaves Perez with the Minuteman on duty, Major William Bowman (Anthony Mackie), to investigate why Ethan left his post.
The Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analyst aka ARIIA
Jerry and Rachael get back on the bus, which takes them to the Dayton International Airport, and Jerry decides he has to finish whatever his brother started. A man at the airport passes them an envelope with passports and a credit card to pay for tickets. Meanwhile, Morgan has investigated the armored car holdup and through a nearby store’s closed-circuit security camera, tracks Jerry and Rachel to the bus, and gets to the airport right behind them. He spots them in the airport just on the other side of the security checkpoint. With a little help from ARIIA, they escape Morgan through an exciting chase on baggage conveyors and get on an Air Force cargo plane.
Morgan gets sidetracked during the Conveyor Belt Chase
Once aboard the plane, the timer on the briefcase reaches zero, revealing that it contains two injections that will allow Jerry and Rachel to survive the flight in the unpressurized cargo hold. Morgan sees the Air Force plane take off, despite his ordering the airport into lockdown, and demands to know where it is going. Meanwhile, Perez and Bowman find a memory card that Ethan hid for them to find, despite ARIIA’s attempt to stop them.
Perez and Bowman find Ethan's memory card
Perez calls Morgan, who is on his way to the Pentagon himself, and tells him about Ethan, but she is cut off by ARIIA. Perez and Bowman take the message to Callister, just as he is about to be locked down in a “vault” for the State of the Union address, as he is apparently the designated survivor. Upon hearing the message, Callister realizes that ARIIA has activated Operation Guillotine, a contingency simulation for an emergency government if the country’s leaders were killed, on the basis of her own interpretation of the Declaration of Independence and the USA PATRIOT Act because the President’s refusal to follow her recommendation to abort the execution of the terrorist suspect has put the country at greater risk, and that Ethan had stopped it, using his voice authorization to put the program on hold. They go to stop ARIIA, but she traps Callister in the vault, saying he won’t be harmed, while she tries to kill Perez and Bowman, who narrowly escape.
Meanwhile, Jerry and Rachel have gotten off the cargo plane to discover they are at the Pentagon.
Jerry and Rachel at The PentagonARIIA leads Jerry and Rachel to her control room, where she uses Jerry as a stand-in for his identical twin Ethan to unlock Ethan’s lockout and allow her to continue.
Jerry and Rachel finally get their first look at ARIIAARIIA reveals that she is going to kill most of the country’s leaders, including the President and Vice President, because they went ahead with the mission to kill the terrorist suspect against its recommendation; Ethan had discovered the plan, so the computer had caused the accident that killed him so he couldn’t reveal the plan. Rachel then points a gun at Jerry, following ARIIA’s orders to her, which was to kill Jerry so he can’t reactivate the lockout. Jerry’s willing to let her, but she can’t go through with it.
She just doesn't have it in her!ARIIA lets her escape, just as Morgan arrives to take Jerry into custody. A driver is waiting for Rachel with a black SUV. He makes her a Capitol visitor pass and takes her to an office and gives her a change of clothes to put on at ARIIA’s request. Rachel tries to convince the man, a government employee named David Johnson, to help her out of the situation, but he seems too afraid of whatever ARIIA has threatened him with to even consider it.
At Union Station, the music school teacher is told by two White House representatives that there’s been a change of plans. Meanwhile, Morgan’s assistant has uncovered the connection between the man who stole the trumpet and the explosive crystal. Morgan thinks there has to be a connection, so he gets Jerry out of military custody and gets him to a car to ask him what he knows.
Morgan takes matters into his own handsJerry doesn’t know anything about the explosive but tells Morgan about ARIIA and how she tracks them and gets Morgan to throw out his cell phone and radio. ARIIA activates a Reaper drone aircraft to hunt them down. NORTHCOM sends an F-16 to take out the rouge drone but ARIIA activates the fighter’s ejection seat. Jerry tells Morgan about the list of targets and Morgan tells Jerry that the State of the Union starts in 20 minutes and about the sonic trigger and the music shop, and Jerry remembers that Rachel’s son plays the trumpet. The Reaper fires a missile that wrecks their car and they commandeer another one. The Reaper follows them into a tunnel and takes out that car as well, seriously injuring Morgan. Morgan gives Jerry his badge and gun and tells him to go to the Library of Congress where a tunnel can get him to the Capitol, and to tell the Sergeant at Arms he has a POTUS Triple-One, or threat against the President. As Jerry escapes, Morgan sacrifices his life to create a crash that takes out the Reaper drone.
Rachel has gotten dressed in the new clothes, which includes the necklace with the explosive crystal. Unknown to her, her son’s music group has been redirected to play at the Capitol for the State of the Union address. Callister asks ARIIA why he’s being spared, and she reveals she intends for him to become President, since he agreed with her recommendation. Bowman and Perez try to manually deactivate ARIIA’s memory. Rachel arrives at the Capitol and is escorted to her seat, and Jerry gets to the Library of Congress and, posing as Morgan, tells the security guard about the threat to the President.
Perez and Bowman try to shut down ARIIA by draining the system’s liquid nitrogen coolant, while Jerry gets to the tunnel and gets into a fight with a guard. Jerry ends up stealing the guard’s uniform, and Perez and Bowman succeed in draining the coolant, but ARIIA tries to transfer the system to a backup through a satellite link. The State of the Union address starts and in the middle of the speech the President has Sam’s band enter to play the national anthem. When Rachel sees Sam she panics, but accomplishes little. At the Pentagon, ARIIA takes out Bowman, but Perez gets her hands on some kind of metal bar and smashes ARIIA in the eye, which explodes in a shower of sparks and shuts down the system. Jerry arrives at the main chamber at the last minute and in a desperate move to stop the band, pulls out a gun and starts firing into the air. The band stops playing and the Secret Service open fire on Jerry.
Rachel has gotten dressed in the new clothes, which includes the necklace with the explosive crystal. Unknown to her, her son’s music group has been redirected to play at the Capitol for the State of the Union address. Callister asks ARIIA why he’s being spared, and she reveals she intends for him to become President, since he agreed with her recommendation. Bowman and Perez try to manually deactivate ARIIA’s memory. Rachel arrives at the Capitol and is escorted to her seat, and Jerry gets to the Library of Congress and, posing as Morgan, tells the security guard about the threat to the President.
Perez and Bowman try to shut down ARIIA by draining the system’s liquid nitrogen coolant, while Jerry gets to the tunnel and gets into a fight with a guard. Jerry ends up stealing the guard’s uniform, and Perez and Bowman succeed in draining the coolant, but ARIIA tries to transfer the system to a backup through a satellite link. The State of the Union address starts and in the middle of the speech the President has Sam’s band enter to play the national anthem. When Rachel sees Sam she panics, but accomplishes little. At the Pentagon, ARIIA takes out Bowman, but Perez gets her hands on some kind of metal bar and smashes ARIIA in the eye, which explodes in a shower of sparks and shuts down the system. Jerry arrives at the main chamber at the last minute and in a desperate move to stop the band, pulls out a gun and starts firing into the air. The band stops playing and the Secret Service open fire on Jerry.
I don't think he expects to surviveIn the end, we see that ARIIA has been permanently shut down and the heroes receive medals (Morgan and Ethan posthumously). Jerry miraculously survived being shot several times to receive his medal in person (presumably the tunnel guard had a bulletproof vest that Jerry stole along with his uniform, though that’s never actually made clear), which finally makes his father proud of him. Jerry comes to Rachel’s house to attend Sam’s birthday and she kisses him on the cheek.
He's better than her ex-husband
My Review:
Eagle Eye was better than I thought it would be. There is a lot of action, and those action scenes are very well done. The first car chase is very good, though the cranes at the end are a bit much. I thought the chase on the baggage conveyors was clever and pretty unique. The scene with the drone in the tunnel is far beyond belief, but well done. There is an interesting premise in the idea of a computer compiling information and the government using cellphones for spying, but the plot doesn’t quite make sense and raises many, many questions. Why did Jerry have to be framed at all? Couldn’t ARIIA have tried a more subtle approach first, like “your brother was supposed to do this and now he’s dead but it’s really important, so would you mind…”? Why did Jerry and Rachel have to meet up with the music store guy? ARIIA was able to arrange for a car for Rachel before, why not again? Why did they have to steal the briefcase from the armored truck? Couldn’t ARIIA have changed the briefcase’s destination so that the armored truck would deliver it to Jerry and Rachel? And why did the briefcase have a timelock on it anyway? In the tunnel chase scene, I’m pretty sure that the drone aircraft could fly a lot faster than traffic, and besides that, it couldn’t turn around, so Jerry and Morgan could have just stopped and it would have had to fly right by them. And if ARIIA can independently launch drones armed with missiles, why did she need Rachel and her son and his trumpet and the explosive crystal necklace at all, when she could have just had a drone blow up the Capitol with missiles? Jerry’s fight with the guard in the tunnel makes no sense, and why didn’t the guard at the Library of Congress call in the potential threat against the President? The biggest problems come with the design of ARIIA, which is basically a giant hovering eyeball surrounded by gold spheres, which looks kind-of cool, but doesn’t make any sense. And then there’s the whole subplot with Perez and Bowman trying to shut ARIIA down. Pulling out memory modules? Draining the liquid nitrogen cooling system? Doesn’t the thing have an off switch? Can’t you “pull the plug” and cut the power? And then in the end, Perez shuts it down by smashing it in its electronic eye, which was accompanied by the obligatory shower of sparks; a lackluster ending to the sequence that had me wondering why they didn’t try something like that in the first place. Then again, back when Jerry and Rachel were in the control room and ARIIA said Jerry had to die so he couldn’t reengage to lockout, Jerry had the perfect opportunity to blurt out “reengage the lockout” with his brother’s command code that ARIIA had just provided, so none of the characters come off as particularly bright (except maybe Morgan). And while we’re on that scene, ARIIA couldn’t proceed with her plan without getting Jerry to recite his twin brother’s command code (setting aside the fact that even identical twins aren’t THAT identical), and yet could act independently to do whatever was necessary to bring Jerry there to recite the command code? OK so there’re a lot of problems with the plot, but if you can suspend disbelief, it is an enjoyable ride, at least until the end when things get tedious, at which point there’s so much going on almost simultaneously and so many cuts back and forth that the film might have benefited from splits screens ala 24, and I didn’t find the ending satisfying. (Maybe they were leaving things open for a sequel) The acting was good, especially from Billy Bob Thornton, who I thought was easily the standout and deserved more screen time. His performance initially reminded me of an agent from The Matrix, and later seemed a mix of Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive with Gary Oldman’s Jim Gordon from Batman Begins/The Dark Knight. The voice acting by an uncredited Julianne Moore as ARIIA was also very good. The special effects were excellent, although these days that’s to be expected, and even though I didn’t care for ARIIA’s design, it still looked good.
In the end, Eagle Eye delivers what it was intended to deliver: two hours of escapist action, and for the viewer who can suspend disbelief enough to get past the plot holes, it’s an enjoyable ride.
Eagle Eye was better than I thought it would be. There is a lot of action, and those action scenes are very well done. The first car chase is very good, though the cranes at the end are a bit much. I thought the chase on the baggage conveyors was clever and pretty unique. The scene with the drone in the tunnel is far beyond belief, but well done. There is an interesting premise in the idea of a computer compiling information and the government using cellphones for spying, but the plot doesn’t quite make sense and raises many, many questions. Why did Jerry have to be framed at all? Couldn’t ARIIA have tried a more subtle approach first, like “your brother was supposed to do this and now he’s dead but it’s really important, so would you mind…”? Why did Jerry and Rachel have to meet up with the music store guy? ARIIA was able to arrange for a car for Rachel before, why not again? Why did they have to steal the briefcase from the armored truck? Couldn’t ARIIA have changed the briefcase’s destination so that the armored truck would deliver it to Jerry and Rachel? And why did the briefcase have a timelock on it anyway? In the tunnel chase scene, I’m pretty sure that the drone aircraft could fly a lot faster than traffic, and besides that, it couldn’t turn around, so Jerry and Morgan could have just stopped and it would have had to fly right by them. And if ARIIA can independently launch drones armed with missiles, why did she need Rachel and her son and his trumpet and the explosive crystal necklace at all, when she could have just had a drone blow up the Capitol with missiles? Jerry’s fight with the guard in the tunnel makes no sense, and why didn’t the guard at the Library of Congress call in the potential threat against the President? The biggest problems come with the design of ARIIA, which is basically a giant hovering eyeball surrounded by gold spheres, which looks kind-of cool, but doesn’t make any sense. And then there’s the whole subplot with Perez and Bowman trying to shut ARIIA down. Pulling out memory modules? Draining the liquid nitrogen cooling system? Doesn’t the thing have an off switch? Can’t you “pull the plug” and cut the power? And then in the end, Perez shuts it down by smashing it in its electronic eye, which was accompanied by the obligatory shower of sparks; a lackluster ending to the sequence that had me wondering why they didn’t try something like that in the first place. Then again, back when Jerry and Rachel were in the control room and ARIIA said Jerry had to die so he couldn’t reengage to lockout, Jerry had the perfect opportunity to blurt out “reengage the lockout” with his brother’s command code that ARIIA had just provided, so none of the characters come off as particularly bright (except maybe Morgan). And while we’re on that scene, ARIIA couldn’t proceed with her plan without getting Jerry to recite his twin brother’s command code (setting aside the fact that even identical twins aren’t THAT identical), and yet could act independently to do whatever was necessary to bring Jerry there to recite the command code? OK so there’re a lot of problems with the plot, but if you can suspend disbelief, it is an enjoyable ride, at least until the end when things get tedious, at which point there’s so much going on almost simultaneously and so many cuts back and forth that the film might have benefited from splits screens ala 24, and I didn’t find the ending satisfying. (Maybe they were leaving things open for a sequel) The acting was good, especially from Billy Bob Thornton, who I thought was easily the standout and deserved more screen time. His performance initially reminded me of an agent from The Matrix, and later seemed a mix of Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive with Gary Oldman’s Jim Gordon from Batman Begins/The Dark Knight. The voice acting by an uncredited Julianne Moore as ARIIA was also very good. The special effects were excellent, although these days that’s to be expected, and even though I didn’t care for ARIIA’s design, it still looked good.
In the end, Eagle Eye delivers what it was intended to deliver: two hours of escapist action, and for the viewer who can suspend disbelief enough to get past the plot holes, it’s an enjoyable ride.
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