Eagle Eye (7/10)
posted in Movie Reviews |
This is one of those movies that manages to remain entertaining enough, despite a completely implausible and ridiculous script. I’d probably give this a 6 out of 10 were it not for Michelle Monaghan (one of my favorite actresses) being one of the stars, which helps me justify bumping it up to a 7 out of 10.
Writing: While I must admit that this story went in a direction that I honestly wasn’t expecting, and the fact that it actually does contain some interesting ideas, most of the material is insanely unrealistic. Now, a movie can be great without being even remotely realistic. I happen to love many such films. The key is to not be trying to play into a realistic framework. And that is the first mistake of this film - trying to be real. Granted, there are some amusing bits of dialog here and there that poke fun at the ridiculous nature of what’s going on, but it doesn’t do enough to undercut the insanity. On top of the core ridiculous aspects of the script, there’s a complete lack of common sense and logic throughout the film. This is like those overly-complicated plans that Bond villains would make to kill James, when they should have simply shot him between the eyes. You know, the kind of stuff for which Scott Evil would make fun of his father, Dr. Evil. This story could have been over in 30 minutes if the ultimate goal would have been accomplished by one of a thousand simple methods, avoiding the whole cat-and-mouse material. But then you wouldn’t have a movie, would you?
Production: Having said all that about the writing, the production goes the extra mile to compensate. This is a first rate production. It features dynamic cinematography and editing, a wild sound mix, aggressive scoring and a nice attention to detail. Those who say that a production or cast can’t make up for a bad script are often right, but in this case I think it was pulled off. It’s hard for it to make it a great film, but it can certainly make it entertaining enough, as it did for this film. Director DJ Caruso (who’s previous film was Disturbia with LaBeouf) manages to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Or at least a well nourished chipmunk. Having also shared many production elements and people as Transformers, I will say that I enjoyed this movie more than Transformers.
Cast: Shia LaBeouf is one of those hot button actors these days, with many people either loving or hating his work. I’m not a huge fan, but I do enjoy most of his performances. This movie got one of his better performances (certainly better than Transformers - though the stuff he got to play in Transformers was much worse than what he gets in this film). As I said earlier, Michelle Monaghan is a favorite actress of mine, so my opinion is considerably biased. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), I thought she was great. Then there’s the rest of the cast, which is filled in by such a roster of quality, known actors, I was surprisingly impressed. From Michael Chiklis’ nice performances as the Secretary of Defense to Billy Bob Thornton’s intelligent pursuer, this is a well cast film. Rosario Dawson feels just a tiny bit out of place in her role, but she still does a good enough job to make it work. She at least plays off Thornton nicely. The great William Sadler gets a small role as the father to LaBeouf’s character, and of course he does a great job. The under appreciated Ethan Embry gets a small role as Thornton’s partner. The rest of the cast is well rounded out.
Music: Like his great score for AvP2, Brian Tyler swings for the fences with this score. Full of rich, dynamic orchestration and pacing, it succeeds in the struggle to keep up with the material on screen. He also manages to sneak in some nice thematic character material from time to time, particularly in the first act of the film. While the script may be overly ridiculous, it does give ample opportunity to dynamic music scoring.
