MOBILE phone signals can be tracked to within a few feet and your emails easily intercepted, while CCTV cameras monitor every inch of our biggest cities.

Privacy is an illusion. You can run but you definitely can’t hide. In Eagle Eye, an invisible puppet master with the voice of Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore abuses this omnipresent technology for nefarious purposes, drawing two strangers into a web of murder and deceit.

A threatening telephone call to both characters sets this ludicrously overblown romp in motion, inviting director DJ Caruso to up the ante with a series of spectacular set-pieces that begins with the arm of a crane crashing through the side of a building.

Audiences will have to play as dumb as the beleaguered heroes. As soon as you question the film’s twisted logic, you realise that survival relies too heavily on luck and coincidence.

A leap of faith from a high-rise building would end with splatter on the pavement in any other film, while the characters’ uncanny ability to spot messages from the puppet master on TV screens and electronic displays – during frenetic chases with gun-toting cops, no less – is truly staggering.

Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) and single mother Rachel Holloman (Monaghan) have never met, but both receive similar calls informing them to follow explicit instructions or pay the price. A threat to kill Rachel’s young son Sam (Boyce), who is travelling to Washington for an important music recital with his classmates, ensures Jerry and his companion abide by every mysterious dictate. When the mastermind behind the devious scheme reveals their ultimate goal – for Jerry and Rachel to commit mass murder – the would-be assassins find themselves on the run from the cops and FBI.