9.26.2008

EAGLE EYE.

So what we have here is a fairly entertaining action movie with some logic issues. After the death of Jerry Shaw’s (Shia LaBeouf) twin brother, Jerry goes home to find his place covered with military things that point to him being a terrorist. Meanwhile, Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) is a single mother via divorce whose son is going on a big train ride to Washington D.C. in order to play the trumpet in a junior orchestra. Then suddenly both of them get calls: Jerry to escape from the FBI, and Rachel to do as she’s told unless she wants her son to die by having the train derail. After them both are military officer, Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson); Defense Secretary Callister (Michael Chiklis); and FBI Agent Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). So the rest of the movie is a big chase scene with cool tech-related things getting them through situations while the mysterious woman’s voice commands them to certain places at certain times. And sometimes they aren’t even alone in their journey.


The coolest part about the movie was the action. A lot of stuff reminded me of the really awesome movie The Game, except with more tech-related things happening. There was a great car chase sequence… hell, there was great everything with the action. But one thing that bugged me about it was that there could be so many different horrendous car wrecks, but only one time in the movie (when it was plot-necessary) did it actually affect any character. They would get up and walk or run around with sometimes not even a scratch.


On the subject of illogic happenings, one of the biggest issues I had with the movie was one that the whole plot rested on: the train trip of Rachel’s son. Seriously, what kind of train ride lasts almost two freakin days? And not to mention in that time span, they only slept once and didn’t have a total body failure from all the running around? I suppose, though, adrenaline could be part of the latter.


On the acting side of things, I think everybody did really well. Shia and Billy Bob were the best. It was so refreshing to see Billy Bob in something that wasn’t a dark comedy lately. And just imagining Shia going from Even Stevens to this is an amazing thought in and of itself, so I commend him there.


The story was a bit out there, though, but I don’t want to go into the story too much, as it could spoil quite a bit. There’s a nice twist halfway through that for whatever reason I didn’t expect. Maybe at one point, but I didn’t follow the trail of that thought. I did like the fact that they made the movie show the bad sides of the government instead of having some underlying theme of patriotism like any other movie dealing with terrorism would. Maybe that’s why a lot of those stuffy, old, conservative critics didn’t care for the movie, eh?


Honestly, to me, the movie was a fun time. Things about the story could have been tweaked a bit to fit better, but otherwise it was a really fun action movie. I could give two movies that I could say “Combine these and you’d have this movie,” but then that’d give it away. Let’s just say one of them is The Game… but I can’t tell you the other until you’ve seen it. And I do recommend it if you don’t mind going out for some action-packed fun and aren’t easily annoyed by logical issues. So yeah… good times.


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A Keanu 'Whoa'

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