Super Computer, Super Movie?

Watch out, Big Brother. There’s an eye in the sky with far greater reach and influence—and she’s got a sexy lady voice too. Eagle Eye, released last week, puts together several recent (and familiar) sci-fi scenarios and gives yet another facet to our loss of privacy fears, plus, yet another reason to fear information technology.

Before I continue, however, let me just say that Shia LaBeouf is growing up to be a looker without losing any of his guy next door appeal. If he plays his cards right, and if he doesn’t let the drink or drugs get the better of him, as rumor has it, he’s looking at Hollywood longevity. He wasn’t pitted against Harrison Ford for nothing — and he’s obviously still Steven Spielberg’s current golden boy.  

In Eagle Eye, we see him as Jerry Shaw, a twin who’s had to live in the shadow of his more successful brother Ethan, who, with his genius-level IQ, works on sensitive projects for the U.S. military. Jerry, on the other hand, dropped out from Stanford and makes minimum wage as a clerk at a photocopying store. He lives a more or less directionless life; he’s perennially broke; and, when he has the cash, he travels to god-knows-where in the spirit of restlessness.

Jerry’s meandering existence is suddenly shoved into a mysterious, almost senseless, direction the day his beloved brother is killed. The first nudge comes in the form of a gazillion boxes’ worth of military weapons that were delivered to his apartment, which would be promptly followed by the FBI bursting through his front door and window. In the space of seconds before the siege, however, Jerry gets a phone call. The lady at the other end of the line tells him: “Jerry Shaw, you have been activated.”

Throughout the film, this lady would be giving Jerry and a host of other people mysterious instructions without giving any of them an inkling of the big picture. Most of them would have, er, external motivations. In the case of Jerry’s partner Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), whom he meets in his Porsche Cayenne getaway car following his escape from the FBI, the woman at the other end of the line has threatened to harm her son, who’s on his way to another state with his school band.

One instruction after another brings them to the Pentagon (how they got there is the kind of stuff you can only find in sci-fi: it involves injecting themselves with an experimental serum that slows down the heart before stowing away in a special box in a nonpressurized airplane), where Jerry finally discovers what he’s really supposed to do, why his brother is dead, and what the hell is going on with voice at the other end of the line. Short of giving away the ending, let me just say that when I heard about, er, “Big Sister’s” plan, a tiny, dark part of me wished something similar could happen in our country too.

Hot in their pursuit are Agent Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton) and Air Force Office Special Agent Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson). The pursuit gives rise to several spectacular chase scenes, thanks to a storyline that involves a super duper computer that’s almost-omniscient and almost-omnipotent. Expect exciting car crashes (yes, they made full use of the Porsche Cayenne), amazing explosions, and fairly unpredictable vehicular action.

Jerry, of course, ends up as the film’s big hero. He outthinks the super duper computer and, playing the human factor, does something the computer couldn’t have factored in using only his digital information footprints as basis. True to convention, the ordinary, formerly apathetic American steps up to the plate and saves the country. The loser is loser no more.

A piece of advice: this film was not meant to be taken seriously, so watch it for entertainment (and perhaps escapist) purposes only. Sure, the acting’s solid — LaBeouf manages to win more acting credibility, plot notwithstanding; Monaghan, Thornton and Dawson are pretty convincing — but there’s nothing in the film that can put it alongside unforgettable blockbusters that it’s reminiscent of, like Minority Report. It’s a good run while it lasts, LaBeouf carries it well, but both mentally and emotionally, it just doesn’t make a lasting connection.

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