The public swallows "Eagle Eye"

According to Box Office Mojo, "Eagle Eye" topped the weekend's movies, raking in a respectable $29.2 million. But before anyone breaks out the champagne, it should be remembered that "Eagle Eye" didn't exactly face stiff competition among the week's general interest movies. It also didn't score especially well with critics, who pretty much gave it the evil eye. The movie earned an unimpressive 43 out of 100 from critics surveyed on metacritic.com an aggregate review site.

A brief reaction from me: "Eagle Eye" reunited actor Shia LaBeouf and director D.J. Caruso, who worked together on 2007's "Disturbia," a juvenile version of a Hitchcock-like thriller. That movie was moderately entertaining, so I hoped their second collaboration might mark a real leap forward. It didn't. If anything LaBeouf and Caruso seem to be going in the opposite direction of improvement with a movie that purports to be about the dangers of ubiquitous surveillance, but is little more than another lame thriller that tries to speed by its imperfections with lots of frantic action. Michelle Monaghan, as a mother trying to save her son's life, accompanies LaBeouf on this dizzying escapade of a movie. LaBeouf plays an underachiever forced toward heroism when he's wrongly suspected of planning a terrorist act.

You'd think people would have had their fill of crazy action as they watched the economy crumble and Congress scramble to fashion a $700 billion bailout plan for the beleaguered financial industry. Apparently not.