MANILA, Philippines - DJ Caruso first directed Shia LaBeouf in ?Disturbia,? a small, edgy film that?s way different from their current follow-up partnership, ?Eagle Eye.? Where ?Disturbia? was personal and psychologically involuted, their current movie is big, brash and audaciously out there, both in terms of theme and presentational style.

This time around, Caruso chooses to direct LaBeouf in a film that does nothing less than imaginatively worry about the future world of total domination that today?s computer culture could create.

In Caruso?s filmic view, today?s world has been taken over by technology, which is now able to keep track of everybody?anytime, anywhere. This feat has been made possible by an uber-computer that is all-seeing, and has also apparently become all-knowing.

?Choreographed? moves

LaBeouf?s slacker character discovers this with a shocking jolt when he is suddenly assaulted by an antiterrorist squad, inexplicably falls into a financial bonanza, and becomes the deadly target of many unseen people whose violent moves are ?choreographed? by a woman?s voice.

Try though he may to escape, the film?s young protagonist can?t. The same fate befalls an absolute stranger (Michelle Monaghan), a single mother whose son is abducted to force her to carry out any and all instructions.

It soon turns out that LaBeouf and Monaghan?s characters? stories are intricately intertwined, and that their fate and that of her son are dependent on how well they carry out the mission assigned to them, abhorrent though it may be.

At first, it appears that their mission is to safeguard the state, due to the fact that they are being pursued by errant government agents. Soon, however, this presumption turns out to be dubious at best, since the mysterious mastermind?s agenda seems to be different from the government?s.

Personal stake

In addition, LaBeouf discovers that, like Monaghan, he has a personal stake in their quixotic mission, because a close family member turns out to have been involved in it, albeit in a contrary capacity.

And, all the while, both characters are on the run, fruitlessly trying to escape from their metro-wide technological maze.

These hectic inputs make ?Eagle Eye? a fast-paced and even frenetic thriller, a slick, state-of-the-art production that keeps its events exciting from beginning to end. After a while, however, the unrelieved excitement becomes confounding. As well, the visual frenzy steals the movie?s proper focus on the movie?s protagonists.

Both leads do their darned best to become the film?s focal point, but the production?s technological flashes and flourishes are too frenetically arresting to be subdued. So, LaBeouf and Monaghan have to resign themselves to playing second fiddle to the film?s visuals and technicals.

Despite this fuzzy focus, Caruso?s movie remains viewable as a relentless action flick, and as a cautionary warning about the technological wave that is engulfing the world.

In the right hands, technology is a boon to mankind; used wrongly, however, it can enslave, overpower, and crush its very creators.

Even worse, as in this movie?s fictive scenario, the master computer itself may use its mega-powers for its own megalomaniacal purposes, and thus adversely affect, not just individuals like LaBeouf and Monaghan?s characters, but the whole hapless world itself.

Sci-fi? Perhaps. But it?s still a chilling thought that could give the most avid techno-geek pause.