Eagle Eye (DreamWorks/Paramount Blu-ray + DVD-Video)

 

Picture: B/C+     Sound: B/C+     Extras: D     Film: D

 

 

Without an Alfred Hitchcock classic to imitate, D. J. Caruso and Shia LaBeouf are reunited after their shaky success in Disturbia with the Jerry Bruckheimer-like Eagle Eye (2008) that would be an unintentional howler if it were not so thoroughly bad.  He plays a guy who just hangs around not doing much until a cell phone call drags him into a military plot that could (yawn) get him killed.  Faster than you can say North By Northwest or Enemy Of The State, he is on the run and gets to drag Michelle Monaghan with him again.

 

This becomes stupid early on with the pre-credit operation of going after more Islamic terrorists, but they are more cardboard than the character development this script (by four people!?!) is.  And the film also manages to waste the talents of Michael Chiklis, Rosario Dawson, Billy Bob Thornton, Ethan Embry, William Sadler and some other familiar faces, that is if you can see them.

 

See, to make up for the lack of story and be hip, the film tries to take the Bruckheimer Military Chic look of bluish (sometimes green or greening) lights, computer lights projecting onto people and digital surveillance imaging to new highs and instead makes them more obnoxious than ever.  Add more degraded images, bad shaky camera work and the idea that we are in “mysterious” tech space and you have a visual disaster to match everything else that goes wrong.

 

The result has quasi-Fascist leanings, is confused ideologically and never makes sense.  Of the government just has a few bad apples in it, then we know the ending here, correct?  Talk about playing it safe.  So where is the suspense?  Nowhere, as the idea is to pretend it is there when it is not.  That ironically makes Eagle Eye a film with far from 20/20 vision, though it is very clear how bad it is within minutes.

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is not great considering it was blown-up to IMAX (this must have looked bad large) and the anamorphically enhanced DVD is much poorer trying to handle al the shades of darkness in vein.  I though this might improve as it went along, but know the transfer is not as much of a problem as the source, lensed by Director Of Photography Dariusz Wolski (Pirates Of The Carribean trilogy, Sweeney Todd) who did the camerawork on the Bruckheimer/Don Simpson hit Crimson Tide (see the Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) in this, his poorest work to date.

 

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix on the Blu-ray is on the compressed and limited side, with the surrounds not kicking in like they should, made worse on the DVD’s Dolby Digital mix.  Extras on both include a useless alternate ending, pointless deleted scenes, stills, gag reel, trailer and five featurettes that show how badly produced this is.

 

Eagles are an endangered species.  Let’s hope films like this follow.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo