Red Eye is the latest thriller from horror veteran Wes Craven. It could be best described as Cellular meets Panic Room meets Collateral meets - AIRPLANE! Of course the Airplane-like lunacy is purely unintentional. Having said that, I didn't flat out hate this silly, but well paced movie. It had it's moments, but ultimately, the cliche riddled plot and cheesy humor drain the
movie of any sort of real suspense.

In Red Eye, the wonderful Rachel McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a seasoned luxury hotel customer service rep who, just before taking a red eye flight, is taken aback by a charming stranger named Jackson Rippner (played by Batman Begins' Cillian Murphy). Before long however, that fondness turns to suspicion as she discovers she is much more than a twinkle in Jackson's eye. It seems that this guy has a dastardly plot, one that forces our heroine to make tough decisions on the fly. With any luck, these decisions just might save the lives of those close to her.

I'll give Wes Craven props for a brisk pace (perhaps too brisk - this film clocks in at a mere seventy-nine minutes). Red Eye, while outlandish, does crackle with kinetic energy. I also thank the good Lord above that this is a better film than last year's awful, awful Cursed, but it's still a far cry from the director's best work. I don't expect Craven to churn out a Nightmare on Elm Street or Hills Have Eyes every time, but it saddens me that this horror meister appears to be drained of his passion. Perhaps he's lost his zest for the genre. That would explain his trying to break out with Music of the Heart back in 1999. I suppose Scream was decent enough, but that movie spent most of the time mocking the pictures that inspired it.
Whatever the case may be, I'd love to see Craven just go off and make an independent shocker again (just as long as it's not called "Shocker" - I wasn't a fan of that one either).

In Red Eye, Craven gets a big boost from a game cast. Rachel McAdams is already a star on the rise. You can see her in the recent Wedding Crashers or last year's heartfelt The Notebook. She's beautiful, has a gorgeous smile, and lends a lively energy to most of her roles. Here, she's the damsel in distress, but I'll be damned if she isn't effective, even when she's forced to partake in one absurd situation after another. Cillian Murphy is the real deal. I first took notice of him in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and he has since built a nice little resume of diverse performances. Most recently, he appeared as Dr. Crane (aka Scarecrow) in the excellent Batman Begins. Here, he showcases his ability to be charming one second, then a complete monster the next. McAdams and Murphy build a nice rapport and as good as they both are, they aren't always able to rise above the silly proceedings.

I have to hand it to the marketing team of Red Eye. They've done a good job with the ad campaign in terms of not showing what the picture is really about. I love how the first half of the trailer makes the picture look like Garden State or Serendipity before abruptly changing tone and showing the true nature of the picture. That's sort of how the movie unfolds. Sadly though, the numerous cliches in the film take hold and there came a point when I really got bored of what was happening. I never felt any sense of real danger and the final act of the picture just drags on into an extended "been there done that" kind of chase scene. And when the true plot is revealed and we learn who the bad guy is trying to take out, I completely lost interest. The climax of the picture, in which we witness the potential extermination of our token victims, is particularly laughable - though it's obvious that Wes Craven is trying to play it straight. Or maybe he wasn't.
Who the hell knows?

Red Eye will probably enjoy the same kind of success that Cellular did. This picture has a lot in common with that one, particularly in terms of pacing and a cliché ridden plot. Perhaps I'm being too hard on the movie. After all, it is just your garden variety popcorn flick. I guess I was just hoping for a little more from Wes Craven, a once great director who appears to have lost interest in the genre. Red Eye looks good and features two strong leads, but ultimately, it's a just a lot of dead air.