REEL CRITIC:

“Eagle Eye” shamelessly borrows elements from many successful action movies. “Mission Impossible,” “The Bourne Identity” and “Indiana Jones” are just a few.

But its driving character is a government super computer that develops a mind of its own and tries to take over Homeland Security operations.

This computer gone bad plot is right out of Stanley Kubrick’s groundbreaking “2001.”

The disturbed HAL 2000 computer of that movie has been replaced with a female-voiced machine in “Eagle Eye.”

She can control all things electronic. Cellphone networks, power grids, TV, radio, trains and planes can all be manipulated by her. But this interesting premise produces increasingly unbelievable events as the story unfolds.

The computer calls private citizens using threats and blackmail to force them into missions of political intrigue.

Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan play the principle victims of this sinister Big Brother tale. With Steven Spielberg as one of the producers, the special effects and production values are top notch.

But the decisions of the human actors strain belief and grow more preposterous as the computer falls deeper into artificial madness.

JOHN DEPKO is a senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office.