Here’s an axiom that seldom fails when sizing up whether or not you should fork out any money to see a Hollywood movie.

Are there any television stars making appearances in it?

Listen, aside from George Clooney, what was the last great Eva Longoria or David Caruso film that you remember seeing?

Film stars can go to television, but it doesn’t work the other way around. I don’t know why it’s true, but it is.

Naturally, when I saw “Turtle” from “Entourage” in the opening scene of Shia LaBeouf ‘s new film “Eagle Eye” I could feel my sphincter tightening.

Uh oh… then I saw “Vince Mackey” from “The Shield” and that’s when I tore the time space continuum around my anus from the clenching.

As of right now, there is an event horizon orbiting around my genitals.

Forget the CERN particle accelerator, if there was a cameo from one more television star, I would have destroyed all life in the universe.

Ok, but I’m pre-judging the film right?.

Maybe Robert Downey Jr., was supposed to be in the film and he got caught up in traffic.

“What’s the story about?!!” you’re screaming.

Get this…

One day Shia comes home after a boring day at a meaningless job, only to discover that his run-down apartment has been filled with weapons, night vision goggles, and ammonium nitrate (I think he also had a carton of illegal Mohawk cigarettes).

This can’t be good. He didn’t pay any TAX on that contraband.

What would YOU do? (I mean besides pick everything up and fondle it in ways that would make a lab technician weep).

The only thing this idiot didn’t do to further incriminate himself was to post a video of himself on Youtube wearing glasses like Sarah Pallin.

But then…suddenly (it’s always “suddenly” when you find a weapon’s cache beside the cat litter box) the phone rings and a female voice says:

“The FBI will arrive in thirty seconds. Jump out of the window.”

I had a similar phone call from my investment advisor this week.

Naturally Shia doesn’t comply, and before you can say “Mr. Anderson” he’s in custody and being interrogated by Billy Bob Thorton.

Heeeeey….. wasn’t there a very similar scene in “The Matrix”?

All that was missing was the metallic squid burrowing into Shia’s bellybutton.

I love how easy it is to frame someone in the movies.

A UPS driver drops off a large drum of something labeled “poison” in your living room (just in case you thought it was some powdered milk from Bejing) and the next thing you know, you have the feds breaching your cupboards with a SWAT team.

Well except that in the real world you can be growing pot in a corn field outside of a polygamist child raping center in Texas, while running a part time Saudi flight school in Florida and it would STILL take four levels of government plus the consensus of the United Nations Janitorial union before the cops could knock on the door(but Shia gets processed in an afternoon).

Off topic for a second…

Is it just me or does “Shia LaBeouf” sound like a French porn star?

I keep expecting to see some guy carrying a portable boom box and a set of tear away cowboy chaps.

Ahhh as usual, I digress…

Lest you think that Shia is alone, the same thing happens to a soccer mom, an immigrant music store owner, and God knows how many others (they keep popping up whenever a package needs to be delivered).

This is the part of the movie that the director hopes will cause you to say “What the heck is going on?!!”

Personally I was saying “Are you kidding me?!!”

The strange female voice that orders these people around can control cars, trains, cell phones, power lines, traffic lights, ATM machines…

It can do almost anything except make Vista work on your PC.

So why are all of these innocent people being coerced into breaking the law?

I’ll get back to you when I figure it out.

The movie is basically a huge “Rube Goldberg” invention (think of the children’s game “Moustetrap”).

You know the idea. You take a very simple idea and then you make it needlessly complicated.

If you need to toast some bread, it will require a bowling ball, a bucket, an old shoe, forty feet of twine, sixteen ducks, a row of stacked dominos and Phillip’s screwdriver to accomplish the task.

Well, it’s pretty much the same idea here.

The mysterious woman on the phone can snap power lines, take over your car and control construction equipment all over the city.

So what the hell does she need Shia for?

I thought that maybe she was some redneck stuck in the bathroom of her mobile home and couldn’t get up because her ass had bonded to the toilet seat.

“Shia… I need you to bring me a bread knife, a bucket of Aloe lotion, a tin of Skoal chewing tobacco and a bag of cotton balls…. oh and a ‘People Magazine’.”

Sigh… no such luck.

The truth is so preposterous and so needlessly complicated that the screenwriter must have used a slide rule and a Powerpoint presentation to simply pitch the idea.

If you can snap power lines and derail a train, I’m pretty sure that you don’t really need the help of a soccer mom.

Make your own explosive rice crispy squares.

1 out of 5.


Open the pod bay door Hal…