fundamentally flawed premise but that doesn't take any points away from the fact that this movie is a treat to watch.

B+

and only 70 or so minutes long .. it doesn't feel it. Cillian Murphy is a great actor. Rachel is good too.

Why did someone already give this an F

The movie is an hour and 25 minutes according to Boxofficemojo. (85 minutes long)

The ultimate exercise in suspense, Red Eye is by and large one of the best movies of the year, if not the best. I was totally blown away. I nearly walked out of this movie with a heart attack. Racheal McAdams turns in probably her best performance to date, and Cillian Murphy, well, he is just plain creepy (in a good way). The last thirty minutes or so of the movie are absolutely fantastic, as is the rest of the movie, and never predictable. I can't say enough good things about this film. See it. NOW.

A+

mY MOVIE STARTED around 7:08 and ended 8:23

Red Eye wasn't a classic by any means (the whole assasination makes less and less sense the more one thinks about it), and it did fall to way too many age old cliches once the plane lands (can you say "low battery" at the most inopportune moments?), but by and large it was a tense, exciting movie bolstered by two great leads, both of whom I feel are destined for stardom. If you don't spend too much time wondering how a master assasin falls over almost everything and can be beaten up far too easily along with all the other gaps of logic, you should find the movie to be enjoyable. I think my girlfriend nailed it when she said it was a "Slightly trashier but just as fun as Collateral". It's a solid B.

PS: How can anyone possibly say it wasn't predictable? The last time the trailers gave away this much of the movie was Cast Away. I could have laid out the entire plot even before I saw the movie, and I would have been dead on. If you've seen the trailer, you've just seen a 2 minute cut of the movie that shows pretty much all the cards it has.

I'm sorry, I guess I should have clarified; when I said that it wasn't predictable, I meant that it doesn't take the route of other suspense thrillers; It's not overly stylized nor does it concentrate on mindless action sequences or killings to build suspense. In fact, most of the movie is just them on the plane, which in any other movie might not work in terms of building suspense, but Wes Craven pulls it off effortlessly. Now I'm not saying it's super original, but I thought it was a very nice, refreshing effort for the genre.

Well, it's not overly stylized and doesn't have lots of death and explosions. But I thought it played out very routinely, everything went just as it usually does in a small scale thriller like this.

Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is a successful and accomplished businesswoman working at one of the best hotels in Miami. Although her father Joe (Brian Cox) is a bit overprotective due to an event that occured in the past, she has a pretty good life. But all that changes when she is called away from Florida and heads out to Texas for her grandmother's funeral. On the way back, she arrives at the airport to discover her flight has been delayed. Then through a twist of fate she meets Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), another individual on the delayed flight.

The two seem to hit it off instantly. They get along well and have a brief but effective conversation at the bar. Soon after, the two discover they are seated together on the airplane ride home. But once the plane takes off, Lisa discovers that her new friend is not who he appears to be. Jackson is involved in a plot to assassinate a Homeland Security official on his way to Lisa's hotel. If she doesn't cooperate, then her father will die. Not knowing what to do or who to turn to, Lisa must outsmart Jackson before it is too late.

I had been dying to see RED EYE ever since I saw the trailer back in March. It looked, in a word, awesome. I'm a huge fan of thrillers and this one had director Wes Craven attached. Plus, my favorite actress - Rachel McAdams - was the leading lady here. After months and months of waiting I finally saw it. I was not disappointed at all. In fact, it truly surpassed all of my expectations.

As previously mentioned, RED EYE is directed by Wes Craven, who has made a name for himself as the so-called master of the horror genre. Although he has ventured into other genres - such as drama for the 1999 Meryl Streep film MUSIC OF THE HEART - his forte has always been in making people scream. He is most famous for directing the classic SCREAM trilogy as well as A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, two films that revitalized the genre and gave it new fresh life. Craven takes on his first all-out thriller here and couldn't have done a better job. He makes the audience feel as if they are going through everything with Lisa, making camera angles seem oddly clausterphobic - with lots of closeups throughout. It is edited superbly and moves along at a fast pace, building up dread with every frame.

The two lead performances are fantastic. Rachel McAdams is honestly one of the most talented people working today. She continues to better herself with every performance she does. She gives what is currently the best female performance of 2005 as Lisa. She injects everything that is neccessary and more into this physically demanding role and makes her a character the audience can identify with and root for. She isn't some kind of superwoman, she's human and that makes her easier to relate to. Injecting a lot of spunk, charisma and emotion into her performance, McAdams is truly a star on the rise.

Also spectacular is Cillian Murphy as Jackson. Coming off a memorable supporting turn as the evil Scarecrow in BATMAN BEGINS, Murphy creates a character that is one of the best on-screen villians in years. He is continuously creepy in every frame and puts in a truly effective and haunting performance.

This is a film that primarily foucses on these two individuals, so the supporting characters are slim. There are a few decent performances though. Jayma Mays is the standout as Cynthia, who is keeping watch on the hotel while Lisa is out of town. She brings some much needed humor into an already tense film and turns in a good performance overall. Brian Cox is solid but underused as Lisa's concerned father.

The real thing that makes this movie work, however, is the suspense. This is truly one of the most suspenseful films in years. I was on the edge of my seat from beginning to end not sure of what would happen next. And I was not alone. The audience was totally engrossed in the story as well. Plenty of people jumped, screamed and applauded throughout. My eyes were literally glued to the screen - especially during the final act, which is just as tense and nerve-wrecking as any horror film.

Overall, RED EYE was honestly a fantastic film and has become one of my new favorite thrillers of all time. It is easily one of the best times I've had at the movies this year by far, and it is also Wes Craven's best work since the original SCREAM. This is also going to be a huge hit based on audience reaction. I know I'll be telling everyone about it and I plan on seeing it again. I can't stress this point enough - RED EYE is the second best film of 2005 and a genuine crowd pleaser. See it now!

10/10 (A+)

I thought it was tense and entertaining. Hardly an oscar contender, just a good, fun popcorn flick. I recommend to anyone looking for a fun night at the movies.

B+

What I was expecting and what I got were two entirely different movies...and that is a good thing.

Wes Craven delivers once again, this time in the form of one of the most tense and nail-bitting thrillers in recent memory. From the moment the film begins, to the time the end credits roll, the film is nothing short of incredible. The set-up is masterful and provides a great deal of expert character development. From the moment the characters enter the plane though, the film takes an entirely different turn, and it is one that is truely expertly done.

McAdams and Murphy provide standout performances, though the entire supporting cast is also quite good. On-par with Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street as Craven's top films, Red Eye is nothing short of spectacular. Not to be missed. A+

Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams, WEDDING CRASHERS) is the manager of a hotel in Miami who has flown to Dallas for her grandmother's funeral. She has an all-business demeanor, constantly on the run, bellowing into her cell phone, and expecting nothing less than perfection from those around her. She's planning to fly the red eye home to Miami on a rain-swept evening. Due to the weather, her flight's delayed for hours. While waiting in the crowded terminal where the tempers of delayed flyers are running high she meets an unassuming and charming man (Cillian Murphy, BATMAN BEGINS), who is also waiting for the flight to Miami. After spending time with him at an airport lounge she's suprised to see he's also sitting next to her on the plane. She believes he's a nice catch, a sweet person to chat with on a long flight...

She's wrong.

Once in the air, he reveals himself to be a criminal who made sure he was seated right beside her. A top Homeland Security official will be arriving at her hotel in the morning and it seems certain people want him dead. Lisa is told by her volatile captor that she must call her hotel and change the politician's room from an inner suite to one facing the water. If she doesn't do this, an assassin waiting outside her father's (Brian Cox, THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) home will murder him. If she does change the rooms, she's told her father will not be harmed and neither will she. As the plane draws closer to Miami, a cat-and-mouse game develops between abductor and prisoner, a game which may result in tragedy.

RED EYE is an nice change of pace for director Wes Craven (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, SCREAM). The usual Craven film involves over-the-top slayers, gallons of blood, and a cast of teenage victims, er, characters. Perhaps he changed his style around after his last teen slasher, the werewolves-in-Hollywood opus CURSED, was absolutely shredded creatively by its studio, Dimension Films. In an attempt to draw in teenagers, Craven's expected gore was largely toned down or even edited out entirely, characters went through wild transformations through various re-shoots (unrelated characters became siblings, some were even cut out or re-cast), and the film released, though truly fun and exciting in a Z-grade horror way, was often an interminable mess of pop culture references, plot twists, and horror-tinged comedy. This film's screenplay, by newcomer Carl Ellsworth, is the complete opposite of Kevin Williamson's CURSED screenplay. Instead of CURSED's large quantity of important characters, here its boiled down to two. This is one of those "specific-time-and-space" thrillers (SPEED, COLLATERAL, CELLULAR) which follows a few characters through a very thrilling part of their lives in, almost, real time. The appeal of this style, to me, is that films are forced to be economic. When you're following the events of a short period of time, you can't waste time on pointless moments or useless characters, you have to jump along at a rapid pace, ensuring the narrative is tighter than a knot and never lax or tedious.

Another must to a winning thriller is casting. For example, so much of COLLATERAL's elegant cool is because of Tom Cruise's ice cold performance as the villian and Jamie Foxx's as the tortured man at the wrong place at the wrong time. RED EYE is exceedingly well-cast, with the most memorable performance being delivered by Cillian Murphy, the rising star from Ireland with sharp blue eyes and a menacing voice. Murphy has been utterly terrifying as two of summer's most unpleasant creeps: RED EYE's villian and BATMAN BEGINS' Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow. Rachel McAdams delivers a physically-charged performance and conveys her character's stress, sadness, and fear convincingly. Other actors in the film, such as the perpetually underrated Cox, barely register. This is a two actor show.

The flaw in RED EYE is that it doesn't reach very far. It achieves what it sets out to achieve, but how much is that worth? The film is best compared to an exciting roller-coaster, its fast, furious, and spins you around a few times, but, once its done, you feel very little. There is literally no depth to RED EYE and all of Craven's polished visuals and Ellsworth's fierce moments of pure tension can't obscure the fact that this film adds up to little and is truly just a highly unrealistic, very cliched 85-minute thriller that has you edge on the edge of your seat for its entire running time but leaves you cold as the credits begin to roll. Another flaw, possibly the only true failing aspect of this minor, but well-made effort, is the score by Marco Beltrami, the composer behind the music heard in FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, SCREAM 3, and I, ROBOT. Beltrami's score is way too over-the-top and in one scene it almost became amusingly absurd. Said scene involves Murphy's character explaining the situation to McAdams' character and after every one of his statements there is a deep boom of music. Were they afraid we wouldn't get this character was pure evil and meant business? Murphy is great as scaring us, we don't need Beltrami's putrid efforts to increase the scares with his B-movie music. Craven, call John Williams or Danny Elfman before your next movie's post-production.

At the end of the flight, RED EYE is exactly what it should be, which is a fun thriller. A thriller that, even though it has no substance, succeeds in giving us a few hair-raising moments and some nice doses of chase thrills. Its nowhere near as memorable as SPEED or COLLATERAL, but this movie offers enough popcorn chills to please moviegoers searching for a fun time in the dog days of summer.

B-

One of the most exciting movies I've seen in a while. After they got off the plane, that's where it goes up. The entire audience was really into it, screams and all. Great movie with a solid performance from Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy. B+

Pretty good fun movie that was laid out as you would expect. But even though the 2nd trailer laid this out, it was still fun to watch.

***************

One other thing, I saw this in a sold out theater and the girls really loved when Rachel was smacking him around and when the father does it at the end.

***************

To MovieDude - I don't think he ever said he was a master assassin - he said he was a manager - I think he was more low level - though he probably had some training as he showed with the knife and he did have the pen hole in his neck.

and Rachel had her room set up that her father never changed with her high school baton > LOL > Who didn't know that wouldn't be handy.

I enjoyed it. The crowd was very active... especially at the end. Lot's of screams and stuff.

C+/B-

A great time at the movies, simply put. From the beginning set up in the airport to the finale, Red Eye manages to keep you at the edge of your seat the whole way through, excited about what's going to happen next. It's one of those films you can really get into, like shouting out (or in your mind) demands for what the character (being McAdams) should do ("Turn around, ya dumb bitch!"). Rachel McAdams, the media's "It" girl, continues to prove why that's her nickname, and also why she's one of my personal favorite actresses, if not my favorite. She's cute and has acting skills...go figure. She played the role perfectly, and acted as anyone would in the situation. Cillian Murphy was also great, as his somewhat creepy look works well in the film. Like, seriously, I'd be scared shitless if a man like Cillian Murphy put me in the situation. The story, while not exactly brilliant, was very good. And, considering this is Wes Craven we're talking about, I wouldn't expect anything less (minus Cursed - werewolf giving the middle finger is big no-no...). Works great as a thriller, though it does have its share of jokes to keep you laughing, as well as situations. Overall, I loved it. Like I said, a great time at the movies tonight. A-

Fantastic, I loved it throughtout the whole time, it was amazing. I really love McAdams now. She is great in this film just like everyother film she's in. Murphy is one creepy man. His face is so demon like, He is the perfect villian.

Overall, This should not be missed, finally Craven has a good film other than Scream, never really got into Elm Street.

A

Plain fun movie. I never yell out at the characters at the movies but I found myself tellin gthat bitch to freakin turn around! LOL B+

Very Hitchcockian indeed... This was a very nicely engineered/directed movie that hummed through it's brisk 85 minute running time. Of course, it being Wes Craven, he's had to amp it up with some camp, but this clockwork thriller's plot is keepin' real good time. Rachel McAdams continues her hot streak (as if there was any doubt!), and this summer continues to produce a streak of really fine movies!

5 out of 5.

A terrific, high class thriller. The story, although somewhat mishandled, does serve some of the most thrilling scenes this year. In a year boisted by low class "Japanese Horrors", this thriller was such a breath of fresh air. You are literally in the edge of your seat. Both leads give terrific performances, and although this isnt the type of film to get an award, I wish it did. What a terrific edge of your seat thriller. Wes Craven has done it again.


Grade: A

The film takes awhile to get going, but it really picks up in the final act. That's not to say though that the earlier scenes are a waste of time. They are very well done. The only thing I didn't like was that the film was only 76 minutes (Without credits). The assassination attempt of Keefe should've been a little bit more elaborate and drawn out. I wish that the film was slightly longer, but what was there was good enough.

B

It was actually a very good film. short but it keeps you sittingff on the edge of your seat and enjoying the whole film. B+

Here's something that bothers me the more and more I think about it. SPOILERS AHEAD: If the guy would have only killed her father if they got the call from Cillian Murphy's character, why didn't she just smack him and scream for an air marshall? They could've easily taken him down (I'm sure the last thing on his mind would be to call if everyone on there was after him) and then called the police to say what was going on.

like I said. it has a fundamentally flawed premise.