Title: Eagle Eye
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 118 minutes
Director: DJ Caruso

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Hey. Psst!!! Quick, over here! I want to say a few things about this new-on-DVD movie, Eagle Eye, but I have to be short and to the point - THEY are watching. You know who I mean ... THEY. The ones who killed JFK and covered it up; the ones who know the truth about Area 52 (yeah, that's right, they only want you to think it's called "Area 51" - don't be so naive my friend); the ones who arranged the sinking of the Titanic (the movie, that is, not the actual boat); the VERY SAME "they" who are probably, right this moment, adjusting the browning level on your toaster by just a fraction of a percent, so that you will be vaguely aware in the morning that something about your breakfast is slightly off, though you will be unsure of exactly what it is, and this will cause you to go about the rest of your day with a nagging sense of unsettledness about life in general.

Yes, THEY are watching. And THEY are observing us right now, so again, I must be brief, and I must speak in very guarded and coded language about this movie, because THEY will be very angry if I say anything critical about it.

Jerry Shaw is the central character, MAGNIFICENTLY played by the hyper-active, fidgety, and stammeringly WONDERFUL Shia LaBeouf (literally, "I am terrified of the beef"). Jerry and his female counterpart, Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), run around the countryside in a frantic and nervous fashion, taking orders from a cell phone.

Actually, to be more exact, they receive their instructions from a female voice over a cell phone, and this female voice is the voice of THEM, which I believe to be ultimately traceable to and identifiable with ahdhakwe ad;h2hge2 jfkhgip8ef nahg83 ad;gy8hajfhdjvnn.

As is appropriate for a techno-thriller of this sort, THEY keep tabs on and communicate with Jerry and Rachel through every technological means possible: street-level video cameras, GPS devices, cell phones (even ones belonging to other people), computer usage, the drive-through speaker at Wendy's, digital marquee signs, computer-controlled traffic lights, and Facebook application requests ("You have one Be a Pawn in Our National Conspiracy or We're Going to Kill Your Family request pending"). Perhaps the most chilling scene in the entire movie is when THEY remotely seize control of Jerry's iPhone and force him to watch countless hours of M. Night Shyamalan films. (You don't find that terrifying? Have you ever actually watched a Shyamalan film after you already know what the "twist" is going to be?!)

There is plenty of running around, driving real fast, blowing stuff up, motor-mouthing (thanks to Mr. The Beef, whose most memorable lines are, as usual, "No, waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait!!!" and "Come on, movemovemovemovemovemovemovemove!!!"), and crashing through glass. Side characters are brought in by the box-load, and then quickly killed off by THEM before you get a chance to become attached (or even care), in order to keep you, the audience, fully aware of how suspenseful and thrilling this movie is. IT IS THE MOST MASTERFULLY SCRIPTED AND EXECUTED STORYLINE I HAVE EVER SEEN. My honest, absolutely blunt and un-filtered opinion about this film is that it 73hjdfb ay fgelabfd y f89a e k fa;hd faggdad95.

The carrot at the end of the stick, so to speak, is the mystery of what exactly is the plot. You keep watching the film because you want to know certain fundamental things: Who is it that is ordering Jerry and Rachel around? Are Jerry and Rachel ultimately being used by the Good Guys or the Bad Guys? What is it that THEY are ultimately trying to accomplish through Jerry and Rachel's involvement? Is Big Brother really this powerful? Who in their right mind, having a surname of "LaBeouf", would name their son "Shia", and then encourage him to get his name up in lights?

Yes, much of this film is implausible (NO IT ISN'T! THEY ARE ALL-POWERFUL!), so get ready to suspend disbelief for a while. That comes with the territory, I guess, and that's why we watch movies in the first place, I think. We like a bit of "no way" to break up the predictability. However, when all the shooting, jumping, stammering, running, sweating, yelling, and techno-terrorizing is over, the grand finale is going to strike you as somehow ... familiar. Even "borrowed". Perhaps even "plagiarized from another movie or movies". (EXCEPT THAT THIS MOVIE IS ENTIRELY ORIGINAL AND BRILLIANT, AND ALL OTHER FILMS PALE IN COMPARISON)

In other words, I enjoyed the film while it was happening, even if I did shake my head a few times and laugh, and when it was all over I rolled my eyes and said, "Ok, that was entertaining, but seriously, HOW WILL I EVER FIND ANOTHER MOVIE THAT COMES CLOSE TO THIS MOVIE'S PERFECTION?" So go for it - it's a cheap rental, and you'll probably have some fun watching it, despite the fact that Shia LaBeouf is, technically, in the film.

Title: The Happening
MPAA: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

M. Night Shyamalan (first name: "Mid") has offered the viewing public a sled-load of steaming crap-cakes, and I would like to offer him a heartfelt "bite me." His latest offering, The Happening, is misleadingly titled; it probably should have been called The Not Happening, Ever. Better yet, it should have been called The Waiting, because that's what the viewer spends most of this film doing: waiting for something to (please, please, dear God) happen.

Let me see if I can summarize the plot, as I understood it by the end of the film:

- In Central Park, people are acting weird - in fact, they're killing themselves (probably in a desperate attempt to get out of being in this movie)
- Obviously, then, something seems to be happening, but no one is sure what it is
- Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher, who has a math teacher with a very large face for a friend, and together they intend to find out what is happening
- Incidents of Escape-the-Movie-by-Suicide begin to spread to the surrounding areas: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, etc.
- Mark Wahlberg does a lot of traveling with his wife, trying to escape from the movie. He also whines a lot while doing it.
- More suicides - really graphic, outlandish, sensational suicides, the details of which are not spared the audience in the slightest by the increasingly-weird M. Night Shyamalan
- Mark Wahlberg continues whining, running, and looking confused and helpless
- Vast amounts of film are wasted on scenes of discussion, in which various theories concerning the happening are explored at length
- More Wahlbergian whining and running, as the suicide rate skyrockets (my theory: the more Marky-Mark sniffles and hyperventilates, the less his traveling companions desire to live, and thus they throw themselves under running lawn mowers, shoot themselves, leap off of buildings, and so forth)
- Wahlberg and his space-eyed wife meet a freaky old farm lady, who must shoulder the very large burden of providing all of the suspense for the film
- The film ends with thinly-disguised commercial probably paid for by Greenpeace

Over the years, we've all come to expect the Shyamalian last-minute plot twists: The Sixth Sense (he's dead?!), Unbreakable (ahhh, he's the villain!), Signs (she wasn't losing her mind, she was predicting the future!), The Village (they're highly-cloistered freaks?! That's the explanation?!). Even Lady in the Water had its redeeming qualities, keeping the audience guessing about which character fit where in the puzzle of the fairy-tale's dramatis personae. The twist came when the script revealed that no one fit in quite where you expected.

But with The Happening, there is none of this. The mystery of the source of the ever-spreading suicides is basically revealed less than halfway into the film, and no plot twist comes along at the end to turn the viewer's world upside down and create that lovely feeling of disorientation. It just ... ends. With a lame save-the-planet lecture, no less.


So here's what you should do: send me the $7.50 you were going to spend on your ticket to see this film, and I'll give you the same content and message in a fraction of the time (so you can get right back to doing more important things, like finding ingenious uses for all that congealed bacon grease you've been saving in a coffee can under the sink). Here it is:

- Recycle
- Respect the Ozone
- Reduce your carbon footprint
- Stop chopping down trees
- Save the planet

There. And you didn't even have to put up with Mark Wahlberg whining and crying at you for 90 minutes. You can thank me later.

UPDATED

This movie was really, really bad. I saw the movie in the theater months ago, and I still have bruises. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to announce the arrival of the one thing that might stand a chance against this steaming pile of ... well, you get my drift. I am referring, of course, to the RiffTrax audio commentary on The Never Did Manage to Actually Happen.



Get your mp3 download today, and be sure to add "Why're you eyeing my lemon drink?" to your arsenal of bad movie catch-phrases.