Shia LaBeouf is a stupid douchebag. Well, I think he is, at least. I’m sure you assume that this line of thinking is unwarranted, but after I heard his (possible) response to being offered a role in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I’ve hated him. I’ve heard conflicting reports on what his response was, but the one I heard first was that he was no longer interested in being a sidekick and was only interested in leading man material, due to the success of Transformers. This is so dumb, because if you’re offered a role in Indiana Jones, you take it, no matter what. However, after explaining this story, I’ve heard other people say that they’ve read interviews where it was the exact opposite. It even says on Wikipedia that he signed on without reading a script, but I don’t trust that bullshit! Considering I’m not a fan of his, you might be wondering why I watched this movie. I was wondering that too, until I remembered that it was directed by D.J. Caruso, who is the most recent attachment to the idea of a movie or TV series based on the comic book Preacher. Not having seen any of his other movies, I figured I’d give this one a shot.

“Hello? Lady on the phone? You sound an awful lot like an embarrassed Julianne Moore.”

Shia LaBeouf plays two roles in this movie. TWO I SAY. He plays one stupid loser dude, and he plays the stupid loser dude’s dead brother. While alive, that brother was involved in the military or something. When his brother dies, the stupid loser dude checks his bank account and finds a shit ton of money. When he goes to his apartment, he finds tons of weapons and bomb making supplies. Something wacky is going on! When he hears a cell phone ringing, he answers, and a female voice says the FBI is about to break in. The voice was right, and now stupid Shia ia apprehended under suspicion of terrorism. Meanwhile, there’s another lady who gets a mysterious phone call from the same voice that is explaining that her son will be in trouble if she doesn’t cooperate with phone voice. That’s when a series of wacky events take place that allows Shia to escape FBI custody, he meets with this other lady, played by Michelle Monaghan, and they are both all “WTF IS GOING ON?!” and oblivious. After multiple contacts with phone voice lady and a series of strange technological coincidences, such as traffic lights allowing their escape or automated construction equipment or messages for these two appearing through video screens in town, they learn that all this shit is being done by a sentient computer! Fuck! Those are the worst kinds of computers! Not only is it a sentient computer, it’s one that was built by the government in response to monitoring cell phones and emails for terrorism that has become so much of a nationalist that it has instructed multiple individuals to take part in the assassination of the president through the use of crystals that will be exploded by the sounds of a trumpet. That sentence is one of the most ridiculous plot points I’ve ever typed. Eventually some federal agents learn about this computer and attempt to kill it, while it also attempts to kill them, in a scene that’s a mix between Wall-E and 2001: A Space Odyssey, while Shia tries to prevent the assassination attempt by shooting the ceiling, causing himself to get shot. Sadly, he lives, and the computer has been destroyed.

This is the villain of the movie. I repeat, THIS is the villain.

FUCK THAT. It sounds even more ridiculous in retrospect than when I was watching it, and even while I was watching it I knew how ridiculous it was. Okay guys, I get it, what if our fear of terrorism drives us to the point that we could even consider the president a terrorist because of how loose of a definition we have for “terrorism”. But, fucking seriously? I assume I missed a couple plot points as to why it was planted for Shia to be set-up as a terrorist, but it doesn’t really matter because, well, “computers”. Just blaming everything on computers makes the whole plot more acceptable as far as the filmmakers were concerned. The voice of the robot killer thing was Julianne Moore, who I’m hoping took her name off of the movie because she realized how stupid and convoluted it was. The only redeeming thing, and it was only mildly redeeming, was the fact that the beginning of the movie took place in Chicago, and it seemed as though they were using actual street names and train stations. For example, at one point, Billy Bob Thornton asks for a roadblock at Granville and Sheridan. Those are real streets! Also, the computer tells Shia to get off at the Wilson stop while he’s on a train, and when he gets off, it actually looked like the Wilson stop for the Red Line train. Other than that, this movie was garbage, and I kind of hope that Mr. D.J. Caruso is no longer allowed any Preacher involvement.

Wolfman Moon Scale