Reviewed by Max Foizey.

Release Date: April 13, 2007
Directed By: DJ Caruso
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse
Rating: PG-13

If I had to sum up this picture in one word, that word would be "insulting." It's a meritless bore, and I'm amazed by the good reviews it's receiving.

Shia LaBeouf may have been amusing in "Constantine," but there's a reason why he's played so many sidekicks - he's too much of a one-note actor to carry a film on his own. In this film, he's petulant from beginning to end, and I'm not sure how much of that is acting. Methinks Shia is too big for his britches. But enough about our star, how is our film?

Don't let the studio spin fool you, this is more-or-less a straight re-make of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window." I don't have a problem with remakes, some excellent films have been remakes, including the Bogart version of "The Maltese Falcon" we all know and love. (Itself the third shot at that story.) My problem stems from how far the studio and stars have gone to distance "Disturbia" from "Window." There's not even a story credit for Cornell Woolrich, who wrote the original short story of a house-bound man who thinks his neighbor may be a killer.

And yet, that is our set up here in "Disturbia," with Kale (LaBeouf) housebound on account of an ankle bracelet he receives after slugging his teacher for making rude remarks about his deceased father. Kale wastes time by spying on his neighbors, but instead of the accidental voyeurism Jimmy Stewart's L. B. Jefferies was drawn into,  Kale relishes it from the beginning, spying on Ashley, the new girl across the street in her bikini.

As Ashley, Sarah Roemer is totally uninteresting. But this may not completely be her fault, as there really isn't much more character development for her other than being the new girl across the street in her bikini. The less said about Aaron Yoo as Ronnie, Kale's dumbass best pal mugging for the camera, the better. Yoo looks like he stumbled onto the set from "American Pie 69" and his dialogue and motivations are the definition of 'horndog.' Yoo better fire his agent and quick.

Though it's a far cry from the futuristic role of Trinity in the "Matrix" films or the femme fatale of "Memento," Carrie-Anne Moss is the only actor doing anything worth paying attention to. She's a believable mother to Shia's spoiled brat, laying down the law as only a mother could. She also gives you a sense of sadness in her character from dealing with the loss of her husband.

David Morse is in the Raymond Burr role, but plays the characther as a more straight forward villain than Burr did. Morse seems to get stuck playing the heavy, even after his impressive turn in "The Green Mile." Here's hoping his next villain is more layerd, and frankly better written. There are no surprises in "Disturbia," unless you're a fifteen year-old girl who has never seen "Rear Window," which I'm willing to bet is a category the row of tweens in front of me at the movie theater fits into.

Want to see Grace Kelly's infamous 'retrieve the glasses' scene transformed into a histrionic Blair Witch rip-off starring a horndog best pal mugging for the camera? Then see "Disturbia." If Hitchcock had been brain damaged in a car accident shortly before filming his masterpiece, this film is what he may have ended up with.

In addition to hosting 'Max on Movies' on Sunday nights at 7pm on 97.1 FM Talk, Max appears weekly on the Dave Glover Show Fridays at 5pm. A member of the Saint Louis Gateway Film Critics Association, Max has written about film and theatre for various print and Web media, and appeared as guest critic on various nationally syndicated radio shows. Max lives in Missouri and is a diehard Miami Dolphins fan. Max hates it when characters in movies wear t-shirts of bands they would never listen to. Shia LaBeouf's character Kale wears a Ramones shirt through most of "Disturbia," and he has a Clash poster on his bedroom wall. Max is sure you'd agree this kid never listened to "Rocket to Russia" or "London Calling."