Eagle Eye (DJ Caruso 2008)
Posted on February 04 at 19.30, 2009 by Eric Mahleb
One of the many wonderful aspects of Cinema is its ability to reflect a culture’s present tendencies and fears. When studied in the context of history, Cinema offers an evolutionary roadmap of the various social and economical trends of a society. Whether German cinema of the 1920s or American cinema of the 1950s or French cinema of the 1960s, they all have something extremely powerful to say about the societal changes that took place in those times in these particular countries.
If you ask an American today which themes define her society, it is likely that terrorism, war, paranoia and the increasing ubiquitousness of technology in our lives and its impact on our privacy will feature prominently. In a way, the nature of the paranoia has only slightly changed from what it was in the 60s and 70s when Frankenheimer and Pakula crafted remarkable films such as The Manchurian Candidate, 7 Days in May, Seconds, Klute, The Parallax View and All the President’s Men. But the means and methods have clearly evolved and we today live in a society that is greatly reliant on technology and where the rise of social networks and of global interconnectivity are making us vulnerable to Cyber crimes, the consequences of which have the potential to be more dangerous than what our most conservative estimates can predict. What the web knows about you today is already frightening enough to rightly justify concern for the future.
With Eagle Eye, Hollywood is showing its ability to capitalize on modern trends and on the public’s fears. Unfortunately, as is often the case, it does so in a superficial way that distorts and simplifies the issues being presented. In a film that Tony Scott would have been proud of but that would have made Stanley Kubrick vomit, an AI created by US Intelligence (a term which the film makes clear can be an oxymoron) looses its marbles and decides to take action against its own government. In doing so, it hijacks the lives of ordinary citizens and, in a series of completely preposterous and nonsensical events, assumes control of everything from airports and subway systems to cell phone networks. Only Shia LaBeouf (who seems to have a knack for playing in really bad movies) can save the world from doom. And also the ingenious idea to empty the cooling fluid that the AI depends on to survive…Even a bit of criticism at the Bush administration can’t save this film from its own mediocrity.
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3 Responses to “Eagle Eye”
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Outlander - Cinema, Sci-Fi, Futurism, Technogaianism and other banalities by Eric Mahleb Says:
February 18, 2009 at 20.56[...] What makes Outlander better trash than for example Eagle Eye (2008) or The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) is that it does not pretend to know how to deal with big philosophical questions and it does not tie its story to the ‘real’. By releasing itself from the shackles of reality, that is, by taking place in a fantasy world, Outlander does not have to meet the stricter believability standards of films that relate to our modern society. [...]
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Wanted - Cinema, Sci-Fi, Futurism, Technogaianism and other banalities by Eric Mahleb Says:
March 7, 2009 at 19.50[...] A regular topic on this blog is that of bad versus good trash. What makes, for example, Eagle Eye (2008) and The Day the Earth Stool Still (2008) bad trash and what makes Wanted good trash? Even though there are many reasons why a film can be bad, there is however usually one overarching common reason: bad trash films tend to take themselves seriously and try to reach emotional and intellectual heights that are far beyond what they can achieve based on the resources available (such as skills and intelligence of the director and actors and quality of the screenplay). There is nothing more annoying than directors who have no understanding of their abilities and who end up inserting childish and immature emotional and philosophical nonsense in their action flicks. Good trash, on the other hand, tends to know its limitations and has the intelligence to try not to pretend that it can be more than what it actually is. [...]
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Outlander | Sci Fi Blog Says:
April 9, 2009 at 3.08[...] makes Outlander better trash than for example Eagle Eye (2008) or The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) is that it does not pretend to know how to deal with big [...]