Eagle Eye, or, Why Bother Shooting in Chicago

This movie is actually only kind of mediocre, especially when you compare it to Shia LeBoeuf's blasphemous breakthrough in Disturbia, the poorly executed rip-off of Hitchcock's Rear Window. The premise was fairly interesting, and, depending on how paranoid you are, not 100% far-fetched. The acting was nothing particularly special, Shia was better in Even Stevens and Michelle Monaghan was better in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Rosario Dawson was worse in Down to You, although everyone was bad in Down to You.

What makes this film bad is the way they insisted on shooting the Chicago scenes in Chicago, but failed to be true to the city in any way, shape or form.

When Jerry is first captured by the FBI and detained at their headquarters, he jumps from the window and lands on the El tracks in the Chicago Loop. Which is fine, except that there is no El stop near the FBI building. The El station the landing was filmed at is nearly 4 miles away from the FBI building, and the building at that El stop is a university building.

I know this because I was there when they were setting up the shot at the Washington and Wells station. They don't however, mention the name of the stop--and when they do mention the name of a stop, it's an entirely made up name!! The trains run in weird directions, but then when they jump off and go for the street level shots, it's no better. The intersperse shots on Upper and Lower Wacker drives (a street, frankly, that begs for high-speed chases) with shots of other streets, which, even if you're not from Chicago and don't recognize what's happening, should give you a weird feeling because there's the Lower Wacker caves next to shops and buildings. What the hell was the point of actually shooting in Chicago if you're not going to use the city as it is?

The other thing that makes this film bad is that Julianne Moore, who's voice is clearly recognizable as Aria, the surveillance system/weapon controlling the action, and yet she's not credited.