Fetishising the same techno babble that it apparently would like to demonise, Eagle Eye is a slightly schizophrenic, enormously frenetic film that is, at its heart, simply a blockbuster vehicle for omnipresent star Shia LaBeouf (Transformers I and II, Indiana Jones IV) and an opportunity for Steven Spielberg acolyte and director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) to stretch his big budget muscles. The rather transparent plot goes: in the immediate future, surveillance of the populace has reached saturation levels, with personality types and purchasing preferences lodged in a super computer alongside criminal histories and psychological tests.

When the turgidly named Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) is framed as a terrorist, he goes on the run with hottie single mum Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) to find out who's behind the kidnapping of her trumpet prodigy son (no, really). With its wet politics, plot-holed-filled script and ugly product placement, Eagle Eye has more than its share of blockbuster-specific "issues"; however, LaBeouf - through his now familiar surly, lounge-about shtick - is a surprisingly compelling presence who can obviously carry a crap film on his back.

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). Monaghan's modest talents are summarily wasted here, but Rosario Dawson and Anthony Mackie are unsurprisingly excellent as military good guys, and Caruso wisely keeps Michael Chiklis and Billy Bob Thornton (as a renegade Secretary Of Defence and a cop-on-the-edge, respectively) on pretty tight leashes. The film is probably twenty minutes too long, and can't seem to decide if its techno-philic or -phobic, but is an otherwise compelling and cogent performance piece for LaBeouf and company.

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