Eagle Eye
DreamWorks SKG | Release Date: September 26, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
43
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
15
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireIan Freer
A fun techno romp, mixing great bang for your buck with insights into the dangers of restricting civil liberties. Now, anyone for Shia killing blondes dressed as his dead mother? Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The movie is so engrossing as an intellectual puzzle and such a solid thriller in every other department that it's probably actor-proof. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
Good, manic fun plus a heavy dose of political intrigue adding up to two hours of clamorous, mind-numbing nonsense. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Monaghan gives a solid performance, and Billy Bob Thornton has sarcastically funny bits as an FBI agent. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
What Eagle Eye wants to do is show us technology's dark side: all the stuff that's there to make our lives easier - ATMs, PDAs, iPods, GPS, cell phones, PCs, "smart" houses - turned against us in a vast conspiracy. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Eagle Eye has half an idea in its head, but over two hours there's no time to complete or explore it, since the movie isn't just a chase but a combination steeplechase and destruction derby. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A movie only a copyright lawyer could love. 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. Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
LaBeouf shambles through the movie with an endearingly lost quality -- his savoir faire is of the hangdog kind, but it pretty much works. And Monaghan, with that upturned nose and those mischievous eyes, always looks like a woman in search of trouble. Read full review
60
Film ThreatMark Bell
In the end, the film isn't a complete waste of your time, and it is a neat little walk down a Patriot Act assisted cyber-terrorist "what if..." scenario, but don't expect anything brilliant. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The word preposterous is too moderate to describe Eagle Eye. This film contains not a single plausible moment after the opening sequence, and that's borderline. It's not an assault on intelligence. It's an assault on consciousness. Read full review
50
VarietyRobert Koehler
The picture's first 35 minutes sizzle until a Byzantine plot nudges the story toward near-parody in the final act. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
A terrorist thriller that isn't so much suspenseful as overbearing. Though it aspires to be an intriguing political cautionary tale, the movie is mostly about the feverish and jarringly choreographed chase scenes. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
With its array of chases and shootouts and a sinister political plot, the movie at least holds your attention and keeps things brisk-ish. But every scene still bears the tags of the place from which it was stolen. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
With less expensive actors, it might just have been called Chase Movie, and played for laughs. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
At least LaBeouf makes for a likable hero. He's got the same kind of easy, natural charisma as Will Smith -- who, come to think of it, starred in another techno-paranoia thriller, "Enemy of the State," that Eagle Eye strongly resembles. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The movie doesn't have three brain cells to rub together, but the premise carries it a long way. Read full review
50
Washington PostNeely Tucker
A sometimes entertaining flick that makes a lot of noise but doesn't have much to say. Read full review
50
SlateJosh Levine
Quips alone do not a popcorn-movie star make. In this age of post-steroidal leading men, you don't need to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to carry a movie, but you do need to have some presence. Read full review
45
NPRBob Mondello
Idiotic, if reasonably kinetic, Eagle Eye -- in which Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan spend the better part of two hours urgently answering phone calls and dodging hurtling machinery -- is every bit as over-edited as it is under-thunk. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
A brain-squandering thriller. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyRobert Wilonsky
From tepid start to laughable middle to thudding finish (and the final two minutes smack of a reshoot), it's nothing but a herky-jerky clusterfuck of noise and nonsense. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
A shrill, far-fetched thriller. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The movie itself is hyperactive and a jumble. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
There is no truth to the rumor that free frontal lobotomies will be performed at the entrance to all theaters showing Eagle Eye. Read full review
38
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Noisy, derivative and thoroughly preposterous even by the standards of 21st-century action movies. Read full review
38
PremiereEric Kohn
It's an empty-headed look at a national problem with modern surveillance society, but if everyone acted as stupidly as the incredulous screenplay would have you believe, then it's safe to say the movie inadvertently reflects, rather than critiques, the insanity of our times. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Questions: Did everyone involved in this botched thriller OD on speed? Does jimmy-legs director D.J. Caruso think if he slowed down the action we'd figure out how stupid the plot is? Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Caruso and Spielberg probably thought they were reviving the paranoid style of 70s political thrillers, but their story is so implausible it barely provokes a tremor. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
It'd probably feel just a little bit timelier and more relevant if it took place in a universe that bore even the faintest resemblance to our own. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
See, everyone complains about humans in movies but no one does anything about it, so it fell to Eagle Eye to make everything laughably, ridiculously fake. Read full review
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