Eagle Eye plays out as an extended game of “where’s LeBeouf?” (sorry), in which someone or something utilizes every form of communications technology imaginable to keep tabs on our lanky hero. When this unseen, dulcet-toned antagonist wants Shia’s character — a Chicago copy-centre jockey grieving over the death of his twin brother — to do something, (s)he/it flashes instructions on the nearest screen, be it an iPhone display or a second-storey stock ticker.
LaBeouf’s character isn’t the only one coerced into this round of near-fatal Simon Says; he’s joined by a single mom (Michelle Monaghan) who has reason to believe that the voice on the other end of her cell phone means to harm her young son. The vertices connecting them — the reasons why they’re being put through such elaborate paces — are at once predictable (with precedents from 2001 to Stealth) and completely bizarre. This isn’t the first film to reflect post-Patriot Act surveillance anxiety, but it’s probably the most ornately ludicrous, culminating in an assassination attempt keyed to whether or not a little boy can hit an F note on his trumpet. In other words, it’s the sort of thing that only the world’s most malevolent piece of artificial intelligence (or four maladroit screenwriters) could dream up.