Eagle Eye (2008)
Directed by D.J. Caruso
Jerry Shaw and Rachel Holloman are two strangers whose lives are suddenly thrown into turmoil by a mysterious woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, the unseen caller uses everyday technology to control their actions and push them into increasing danger. As events escalate, Jerry and Rachel become the country's most-wanted fugitives and must figure out what is happening to them.
35 connections found
View:
35 films that influenced Eagle Eye
What critics say influenced Eagle Eye
"The Fugitive," "The Bourne Identity," "North By Northwest," "The Manchurian Candidate."
Having tackled Rear Window in Disturbia , director D.J. Caruso (again with LaBeouf) seems poised to undertake North by Northwest this time, but the film owes as much to Enemy of the State (the phrase is actually used) as any Hitchcock fare, with a dash of Live Free or Die Hard thrown in for good measure.
Suddenly they're off on a familiar journey - "North by Northwest" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" are poached from, though the biggest lift is from "2001: A Space Odyssey."
In "Eagle Eye" LaBeouf is once again a Hitchcockian archetype - the innocent man wrongly accused, as seen in "The 39 Steps" or "North by Northwest."
They're both too soft and normal to be up for the exertions the story requires of them; a big part of the fun of something like North by Northwest lies in watching the comfortable Roger O. Thornhill pick up the skills he needs to survive one at a time, but in Eagle Eye, it takes Jerry the copy boy all of one scene to be able to leap out of skyscrapers and dodge speeding el trains.
Reuniting Shia LaBeouf and director D.J. Caruso after their mid-level hit Disturbia, Eagle Eye begins like another modern take on Hitchcock classics; If Disturbia felt like Rear Window with a Generation Y (or, really, Z) cast, Eagle Eye plays like North By Northwest 2.0 with a touch of The Man Who Knew Too Much, as LaBeouf's Jerry Shaw is plucked from his normal life and turned into a wanted man when an anonymous voice on the telephone starts giving him orders, and Jerry has to comply or die.
Reuniting Shia LaBeouf and director D.J. Caruso after their mid-level hit Disturbia, Eagle Eye begins like another modern take on Hitchcock classics; If Disturbia felt like Rear Window with a Generation Y (or, really, Z) cast, Eagle Eye plays like North By Northwest 2.0 with a touch of The Man Who Knew Too Much, as LaBeouf's Jerry Shaw is plucked from his normal life and turned into a wanted man when an anonymous voice on the telephone starts giving him orders, and Jerry has to comply or die.
Just as "Disturbia" borrowed heavily from "Rear Window" (1954), Caruso displays a propensity here for constantly tipping his hat to Hitchcock's work, to the point of virtually recreating the entire concert-hall climax of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956).
Inspired by producer Stephen Speilberg, while this is a thinly veiled attack on The Patriot Act, it is still a high-tension thriller, regardless of your political belief, reminiscent of (if not homages to) �2001� (1968), �Colossus: The Forbin Project� (1970), and even "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956).
It strip-mines at least three Hitchcock classics - "North by Northwest," "The Wrong Man," and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" - then commits unlawful assault on Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" just for the heck of it.
Actually, it’s quite laughable, but for the sake of those sensitive to spoilers, I’ll leave it with this: it seems the screenwriters loved “2001,” “WarGames,” and “The Terminator” so much, they decided to pluck what they needed to fill their own creative pockets, even cribbing from Hitchcock for the grand finale.
Then there's the film's many obvious sources of inspiration, which include (but are not limited to) 2001, Blade Runner, Tron, Wargames, The Terminator, The Fugitive, the Bourne films, and Live Free or Die Hard.
When your movie is essentially ripping off “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “WarGames,” however, it is not as easy to forgive.
The two worked together on Badham's superior "WarGames" (1983), and they spend the short time discussing the similarities between the two films.
Suddenly they're off on a familiar journey - "North by Northwest" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" are poached from, though the biggest lift is from "2001: A Space Odyssey."
More disturbia-ing, Hollywood is collecting and recycling ideas from other, better films—in this case, Hitchcock thrillers and even 2001: A Space Odyssey.
When your movie is essentially ripping off “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “WarGames,” however, it is not as easy to forgive.
That said, even the not terribly eagle-eyed will spot plot points from George Orwell's 1984, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, and a variety of Enemy of the State/Parallax View-style paranoid thrillers about nobodies drafted into assassination schemes.
A number of scenarios appear to have been cut and pasted from the likes of Enemy Of The State, Die Hard 4.0 and even 2001: A Space Odyssey.
It strip-mines at least three Hitchcock classics - "North by Northwest," "The Wrong Man," and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" - then commits unlawful assault on Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" just for the heck of it.
Advertisement
Having tackled Rear Window in Disturbia , director D.J. Caruso (again with LaBeouf) seems poised to undertake North by Northwest this time, but the film owes as much to Enemy of the State (the phrase is actually used) as any Hitchcock fare, with a dash of Live Free or Die Hard thrown in for good measure.
Like Smithâs Enemy of the State, Eagle Eyeâs backdrop is a world gone mad with surveillance and, like The Terminator trilogy, one where the machines have slipped their leashes and taken over.
The Will Smith version was “Enemy of the State” (1998).
Arriving at least a half decade too late (it’s a blatant rip-off of 1998’s Enemy of the State, among other Big Brother-gone-wrong yarns); it’s truly shocking that Steven Spielberg attached his name to this.
If the plot of Eagle Eye resembles 1998's Enemy Of The State, LaBeouf's performance is similarly reminiscent of Will Smith's in that Tony Scott-helmed techno-political blockbuster (high praise, in a movie star kind of way).
A number of scenarios appear to have been cut and pasted from the likes of Enemy Of The State, Die Hard 4.0 and even 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The most obvious rip-off is "Live Free Or Die Hard," which did a much better job of managing a similar premise - powerful surveillance and command and control computers in the wrong hands.
Having tackled Rear Window in Disturbia , director D.J. Caruso (again with LaBeouf) seems poised to undertake North by Northwest this time, but the film owes as much to Enemy of the State (the phrase is actually used) as any Hitchcock fare, with a dash of Live Free or Die Hard thrown in for good measure.
For example, even as the movie borrows the traffic-light manipulations of Live Free or Die Hard and The Italian Job, its opening chase scene manufactures a few thrills of its own: The pacing, the sound, and the effects are all in the 90th percentile of such things, and the closing cars-vs.-hooks-in-a-wrecking-yard…
Listing the works that Eagle Eye borrows from would be too blatant a giveaway, but it's clear these guys watched Live Free or Die Hard and read Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy, mixed in with certain unnamed cinema classics, and decided that a good filmmaking method would be to ram all of these things into each other head first and see what emerged.
What's ironic is that the movie is reminiscent of the technological action angle of "Live Free or Die Hard", but what kept that action movie entertaining was Bruce Willis keeping even the most tense situations light, something that "Eagle Eye" sorely needs.
DJ Caruso has enjoyably preposterous material -- it's sort of like Live Free or Die Hard for the left wing -- and he approaches it with a portentousness that kills the fun.
"The Fugitive," "The Bourne Identity," "North By Northwest," "The Manchurian Candidate."
Then there's the film's many obvious sources of inspiration, which include (but are not limited to) 2001, Blade Runner, Tron, Wargames, The Terminator, The Fugitive, the Bourne films, and Live Free or Die Hard.
The supporting cast (including Thornton, Michael Chiklis and Rosario Dawson) is made up of fine actors, but only Thornton gets any real snap and sizzle in his scenes; Thornton may be channeling Tommy Lee Jones's character from The Fugitive, but that at least makes it possible to hear cliché lines like "They've hacked into the power grid ..." without your wanting to actively fall asleep.
Billy Bob Thornton as Agent Thomas Morgan: The first half of the film, when Thornton is channeling Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive, it works, especially when he is barking out orders at his men.
It strip-mines at least three Hitchcock classics - "North by Northwest," "The Wrong Man," and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" - then commits unlawful assault on Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" just for the heck of it.
Advertisement
Actually, it’s quite laughable, but for the sake of those sensitive to spoilers, I’ll leave it with this: it seems the screenwriters loved “2001,” “WarGames,” and “The Terminator” so much, they decided to pluck what they needed to fill their own creative pockets, even cribbing from Hitchcock for the grand finale.
Like Smithâs Enemy of the State, Eagle Eyeâs backdrop is a world gone mad with surveillance and, like The Terminator trilogy, one where the machines have slipped their leashes and taken over.
Pairing Jerry with divorced mother Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), who's cooperating to save her imperiled young son, the shadowy puppetmaster is soon revealed to be an in-beta national security supercomputer known as Aria, which has been granted control of virtually every facet of 21st -century life because, apparently, no one in the government has ever seen The Terminator.
Then there's the film's many obvious sources of inspiration, which include (but are not limited to) 2001, Blade Runner, Tron, Wargames, The Terminator, The Fugitive, the Bourne films, and Live Free or Die Hard.
In "Eagle Eye" LaBeouf is once again a Hitchcockian archetype - the innocent man wrongly accused, as seen in "The 39 Steps" or "North by Northwest."