I went to an advanced screening (and Q&A) of Eagle Eye last night, hosted by Jeff Goldsmith of Creative Screenwriting Magazine. I must say that I enjoyed the film very much up until the very end…

First, reasons why it was so good…The introduction was amazing. I loved everything about the setup of bringing the two main characters together, Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) and Rachel (Michelle Monaghan).

The dialogue was brilliant, especially for Jerry. All of the action was incredible and goes above and beyond expectations. The actors were very strong, there is no doubt that they delivered. I keep going back in forth in my mind whether I am pleased or not with the amount of character development in this film…there was not enough depth for each main character that I usually would desire – but for this film, it was just enough to get a feel for each character but left more room for the bigger problem at hand. I am glad there was no romance between Jerry & Rachel but they did connect because of going through all that they did together.

Now as far as the story goes, I love the plot and all of the build up to the resolution. But all throughout, this film has too many comparisons to other films…”2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Minority Report,” “The Fugitive,” “Enemy of the State,” and “I-Robot.” I was very disappointed in the end. I was waiting all of that time for an ending that I have seen before and would rather not have seen for this film. I did not expect such a predictable ending.

Also, I was disappointed with and would rather have seen Jerry really die in the end. Sure, Shia LaBeouf is a main character and in America, we just can’t seem to have films where the good guys die. Seriously? God forbid we show a bit of reality. Then, while Billy Bob Thornton is a good actor, he just seemed really random. I was a bit sad when his character died.

So…I am not telling you to see it and I am not telling you to skip it.