C

D.J. Caruso and Shia LaBeouf scored an unexpected hit with “Disturbia,” their modernized, teen-oriented riff on Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” so why stop there? Hitch made plenty of movies to crib from, after all. So now we have “Eagle Eye,” an updated version of every falsely-accused-man-on-the-run picture in the master’s canon, from “The 39 Steps” through “North by Northwest.” But this time one of his movies apparently wasn’t enough, so we get a substantial slice of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” as well, particularly in the final act.

Of course, Hitchcock alone might be thought too old-fashioned and mundane for today’s youthful audiences, so we get a heaping helping of Kubrick added as well—the Kubrick of “2001,” to be precise. And all of the borrowings are wrapped up in the sort of glizty, high-tech, high-octane package requisite for an action thriller nowadays, with plenty of explosions and massive car crashes, topped by a heavy-handed political admonition about over-reliance on technology with simplistic present-day overtones. (It’s certainly curious that a warning about the dangers of technology should itself depend so heavily on technology of the cinematic variety for its effect.) It all seems a very juvenile copy of its Hitchcock-Kubrick models, efficiently made in the overwrought mold of contemporary action-adventure movies but a painfully loud—and silly—knockoff of the originals.

LaBeouf plays Jerry Shaw, a slacker working in a Chicago copy store who’s called home after a long absence for the suburban funeral of his twin brother Ethan, an overachiever who was in the military. Shortly after returning to his shabby digs in the city, Jerry’s surprised to find nearly a million bucks in his bank account and box upon box of terrorism-associated stuff (fertilizer, bomb equipment) delivered to his apartment. A disembodied female voice on his cell-phone tells him he’s been activated, but before he can respond he’s arrested by a SWAT team and taken before gruff FBI agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton, tossing off dismissive put-downs and contemptuous glances with practiced aplomb). But his unseen cell-phone master soon engineers his escape.

Simultaneously single mother Rachel Halloman (Michelle Monaghan), who’s just sent her darling son Sam (Cameron Boyce) off on a band trip to Washington, gets a similar call from that unknown female. And before long she’s joined with Jerry in a reluctant alliance to avoid Morgan’s feds, who are hot on their trail, while trying to follow the dictates of that demanding phone-caller—orders that frequently get them deeper into trouble. Two other people, as it happens, are also involved in the caller’s convoluted schemes—a gem-cutter and a music-shop owner (who happens to be an Arab). (How will not be revealed here.) There’s also a Defense Department investigator (Rosario Dawson) who’s in competition with Morgan, as well as the Secretary of Defense himself (Michael Chiklis). And the whole business is set within the context of a military drone’s rocket assault against a group of presumed terrorists in the Middle East, resulting in a substantial loss of life that’s set off a flurry of terrorist attacks in retaliation.

This plot is very complicated—unnecessarily so, when you examine it afterward, particularly when it’s supposed to have been concocted by the brainiest brain in the world—but also oddly simple and familiar in terms of where it winds up. There’s lots of running, jumping and shooting along the way—the feds are terrible drivers and worse marksmen, it appears—while Jerry and Rachel are apparently able to go through the most strenuous physical activities without suffering a scratch or breaking a sweat. Still, one might be willing to put up with it all in a spirit of dumb fun if the visuals weren’t so flamboyantly messy (as so often happens nowadays, the images are too close-in, thanks to cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, and the editing of Jim Page so rapid-fire that it’s almost impossible to get any sense of space or tactics—as in a sequence in a Chicago car-wrecking dump that appears to cover several square miles of prime lakefront property) and if the final message weren’t delivered with a bludgeon even while the circumstances surrounding it remain curiously muddled.

And if the characters had been allowed some time for anything beyond the most rudimentary development. Thornton fares best—he’s an old hand at this kind of virtual shorthand. But Monaghan never gets a handle on Rachel, who comes off pouty for most of the running-time and must deal with an especially laughable last-act turn. And LaBeouf, here as in the “Indiana Jones” sequel, seems to be losing his natural charm as he grows older. There’s an attempt to give Jerry some shading in a post-funeral tete-a-tete he has with his disapproving father (William Sanderson, with whom LaBeouf earlier shared the screen in “The Battle of Shaker Heights.”) But through too much of the picture the young actor seems to be coasting—except for the physical demands, of course. Dawson, Chiklis, and Anthony Mackie (as a soldier on a very special assignment) offer strictly routine turns, as do the rest of the cast.

There’s a lot of empty action in “Eagle Eye,” but ultimately, in spite of its obvious nods to Hitchcock and Kubrick, the movie (based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, who’s also one of the executive producers), really has more in common with the pictures of Michael Bay. For some that may be a compliment. If so, this movie is for you.