The box office-storming partnership of Shia LaBeouf and DJ Caruso (Disturbia) throws bangs and bucks at the war on terror to little effect in this loopy thriller.

Star rating **
Dir: DJ Caruso
With: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson

The box office-storming partnership of Shia LaBeouf and DJ Caruso (Disturbia) throws bangs and bucks at the war on terror to little effect in this loopy thriller.

Eagle Eye, which counts Spielberg among its executive producers, is not exactly sure what it wants to be. It focuses on terrorism, but it also wants to take a swipe at today's surveillance-heavy Big Brother society, just like Will Smith's Enemy of the State. It's a high-octane, shoot-'em-up, run-like-the- clappers chase movie that somehow finds time for heart-to-heart chats and a cute kid. There's a hint of 2001: A Space Odyssey and a truckload of the metal-crushing antics of Transformers. Mostly, it's sound and fury signifying not a lot.

LaBeouf is Jerry, a smart but underachieving nobody who lives in the shadow of his twin brother, a rising star in the military. Michelle Monaghan is Zoe, a single mother. Jerry and Zoe have nothing in common apart from mystery phone calls telling them they have been "activated". Forced to go on the run and do their controller's bidding, the pair are pursued by FBI chief Billy Bob Thornton, who seems to have borrowed a top set of teeth from a passing horse, and Rosario Dawson's tough but gorgeous military investigator.

LaBeouf and Monaghan make a convincing show of being two utterly confused individuals in the grip of a wayward power. Given the story's increasingly ridiculous twists and turns, they could scarcely be anything else. Plenty of wham-bam action, and another chance for Spielberg favourite LaBeouf to do his superboy-next-door act, but otherwise it hardly registers a blip on the radar.