Review of Eagle Eye the Movie

Eagle Eye opens with a military action scene, copy-and-pasted directly from the ten thousand Hollywood action "blockbusters" previous. In fact, the entire movie is surrounded and ingested with extremely-typical condescending and self-important "formal language", that barely a minute goes by without the robot repetition of "that is affirmative".

The audience is introduced to Jerry Shaw, a nobody, who's brother was a somebody in the US Army. Jerry's brother had "died in a car accident" (you wont fall for that one, trust me) and we the viewer, through the funeral and the predictable family feud that follows, are treated to a special insight in to Jerry and his brother Ethan's predictable family jealousy and differences.

But what you don't see coming, is the sudden $750,000,000 in broke-as-anything Jerry's bank account, nor the world's supply of Semtex, heavy artillery, and crop fertilizer that he finds upon his return home. Even more shocking, a woman phones him with advice pertaining to: "Get out of there. FBI will arrive in 30 seconds. No arguments". He frustratingly (for the viewer) stands shouting at the woman, to no rhyme nor reason, until his 30 seconds are up. Men with guns (technical description) rudely burst in with little disregard for the décor, and take him for interrogation.

I'm afraid, if you are extremely sensitive to character stupidity, and frequently find yourself shouting "for God's sake, don't leave the gun behind, you'll probably need it to fight the bad guys!", a high dosage of suitable medication is advisable prior to watching Eagle Eye. Quite honestly, the characters have little common sense, to the fault of writers and directors.

The film continues with the mysterious woman on the end of the line controlling his actions through her words. But not only that, she seems to have access to anything, and I mean anything, electronic or networked, in the world, ever. Oh, and in a split second, too. Plenty of instant "view that CCTV camera" and before-your-eyes "controlling of train systems". It seems someone, possibly even the Government, has a system that can control anything.

Which brings me to a more political point - the idea of a surveillance society, and endless tracking and recording, is now more than an idea, and has turned to an actuality. I personally feel it is important to show the cost of such privacy losses, which is hard to do when the situation is shown so unrealistically. 1984 is used as a reference by privacy advocates worldwide, because it is realistic - no Jedi forces. I am afraid, though Eagle Eye does place this system as the enemy throughout, this is a movie with little political pout and everything centered on action and entertainment. Which, I guess I can live with. Just.

There are plenty of guns, explosions, cool tech moments and suspense moments - which should satisfy most if not all action junkies. But to mistake this film as politically interesting in the slightest - would indeed be a mistake. In short, it is a movie for people that like seeing shit blown up.

For all it's faults, Eagle Eye does show a topical subject in an easy-to-digest fashion, and does keep you interested. It drills in to the part of your heart filled with ambition of world domination - you imagine how cool it would be to have power like that. Imagine bragging to your friends that you can find anything, about anyone, in a second. I don't think you'll be buying the drinks ever again.

Definitely worth a light-hearted watch, if only for the occasional "whoah, cool" mooments. Also as a warning ladies, Eagle Eye is the farthest from a chick flick films can get.