Pun Salad

Mediocre reviews for Eagle Eye (IMDB score 6.7, Tomatometer 27%), but I was sucked in by the trailers on TV. Sometimes this works, but more often it doesn't.

The movie's plot involves two strangers, Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) and Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) who find themselves being coerced by a mysterious voice on their phones to do ever more ludicrous stunts of derring-do, all in pursuit of a goal that remains obscure until near the end. All of this is accompanied by an impressive amount of gunplay, car chases/crashes, explosions, and crane-on-building action.

Scanning through the reviews, the most common word seems to be "preposterous". Yes, if we're talking Shia LaBeouf movies, it turns out that Transformers and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were both more believable than is Eagle Eye. Movies are funny that way. But they have a point: the plot relies on dozens of extremely unlikely dangerous actions performed by our protagonists with split-second timing, and if they had missed just one, the whole thing would have fallen apart. I'll believe in giant talking alien robots before I buy that.

In a cute nod to a much better movie, one of the minor characters who plays a role in the movie's resolution is named "Bowman". I don't remember if that was revealed at a point in the movie where it might have been considered a thuddingly obvious clue as to the identity of the omniscient mastermind. Obviously, I didn't replay it to find out for sure.

Also, Billy Bob Thornton is in it, and he's pretty good.