Eagle Eye

All summer I've been seeing previews for this new movie. Shia LeBeouf plays this guy that gets arrested and accused of terrorism. Then, he gets a phone call at the FBI office telling him to duck and a crane knocks in the side of the building, allowing him to escape. And that's pretty much all you get from the trailer. And you're left with all these burning questions: Who is Jerry Shaw? Who is pulling his strings? Why is it always so awesome to watch a crane crash into a building?

The following blog post contains spoilers from the new film Eagle Eye. You have been warned.

Jerry Shaw is your typical twenty-something slacker who just lacks the motivation to do anything with his life. We find out that he's a twin. And his brother happened to be pretty much the best at everything he ever attempted to do. Sadly, he was killed in an accident.

About this time we also meet Rachel Holloman, a single mom who has just put her musically gifted son on a train to Washington D.C. where his school band will play at the Kennedy Center.

From here on out, it pretty much hits the fan and the action doesn't stop until about five minutes before the credits roll.

Jerry returns to his apartment after attending his brother's funeral to find all kinds of incriminating evidence that would lead anyone with half a brain to believe that he was single-handedly trying to take down the United States. Needless to say he is arrested. But as I mentioned earlier, the mysterious woman who keeps calling him set him free by destroying a building. That's some kind of power there.

Rachel, while enjoying a night out with the girls, receives a phone call from her son. But it's not her son. It's the same woman who's calling Jerry. Her son's life is threatened if Rachel refuses to follow the orders given. So she gets a car and picks up Jerry from the train station. Now they're forced to work together.

I've left out some pretty important characters though. Billy Bob Thronton does a great job as FBI Agent Thomas Morgan. He's got some pretty good lines throughout the movie as he's chasing Shaw and Holloman. Working alongside him is Zoe Perez, played by Rosario Dawson. She's an official with the Air Force who is investigating the death of Jerry's brother Ethan.

After jumping through numerous fiery hoops, Jerry and Rachel demand to know who's pulling their strings. They are directed to Circuit City's home theater room and discover that it's an artificially intelligent computer that pretty much runs the Defense Department. The computer is called Aria and she monitors everything: social networking sites, instant messaging, text messaging, video rentals, blogs...

I guess I should be careful what I say now. I love Aria. I think she's the best thing that ever happened to the world. Hooray for artificial intelligence.

Actually, it's kind of scary. I know that such a thing doesn't exist yet. Well, I assume that such a thing doesn't exist yet. But what if it did? I know the technology already exists where the powers that be can monitor every keystroke we make on our computers. They have the ability to monitor our phone calls and tap into security feeds wherever a camera is connected to the network. Big Brother is watching. And here I thought I was watching Big Brother.

Overall I thought the movie was pretty good. I didn't much care for the ending, thought it was kind of cheesy. But I'm sure it made a lot of people happy. But if I had written it, things would have been different. And I bet real money that there will be an alternate ending on the DVD that shows what would have happened if it had gone the way I wanted it to. Mark my words.