'Eagle Eye' leaves you with aches and bruises

As you drive your Porsche Cayenne to the movie theater where "Eagle Eye" is playing, please don't use your cell phone.

After all, you wouldn't want to be distracted and get a scratch on your shiny new Porsche Cayenne that you park at the edge of the lot so no one will rub against it.

And after the film, when you're driving your Porsche Cayenne to any of the 100 franchise restaurants near the multiplex, you can ponder the odds of a movie as original as "Eagle Eye" featuring a tough but beautiful Porsche Cayenne just like the one whose keys are in your pocket.

Isn't product placement wonderful?

Not to mention sarcasm?

For no, "Eagle Eye" is anything but original. It picks and chooses concepts from films running the gamut from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "The Man Who Knew Too Much" to "Enemy of the State." But you might not notice that because director D.J. Caruso is too busy tumbling his protagonists across the screen, and you with them.

"Eagle Eye" is the kind of film referred to in movie-ad blurbs as "a roller-coaster ride." But a good roller coaster is actually fun. "Eagle Eye" puts you through the stress but leaves you with nothing but aches and bruises.

"Eagle Eye" is targeted specifically at ADD paranoiacs, but anyone who felt faint at the intellectual demands of "Transformers" is welcome. Oh, and it helps if you have a goodly supply of testosterone and like to see lots of car crashes.

Shia LaBeouf (star of "Transformers") plays Jerry Shaw, an intelligent slacker who has been drifting around the States and the world trying to find himself. He's nothing like his identical twin, Ethan, an Air Force hot shot who has just died in an accident.

Jerry is barely home from the funeral when he finds himself framed as a homegrown terrorist with an apartment full of weapons and chemicals. A mysterious call from a strange woman directs him to flee, but he doesn't, and soon he's professing his innocence to federal agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton).

Morgan and Air Force investigator Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) are sure there's a connection between Jerry's terrorist activities and his late brother. Indeed, there is a conspiracy, and terrorism is afoot, but Jerry's not the guilty party.

Jerry, meanwhile, keeps getting communications from the mystery woman. He's teamed with Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), a divorced mom who's also getting directions from the strange woman, who threatens to kill Rachel's son if she doesn't comply.

The mental stress of the four-writer screenplay and the physical torture of Caruso's direction are disguised with flashy visuals, and some viewers may be satisfied with the adrenaline rush. But the hangover -- and loss of brain cells -- isn't worth the price of admission.

Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and for language.

Two stars (out of five)

(Contact Knoxville News Sentinel film critic Betsy Pickle at pickle(at)knews.com.)