“Echelon Conspiracy”

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, some sexuality, and brief language.

 

I am profoundly sick and tired of the paranoid, Big-Brother-Is-Watching-You film plotline. I mean for pity’s sake, our government can’t find Osama Bin Laden, protect investors against Wall Street thieves, or make the stop lights know when it is a weekend … but, by George Orwell, there are satellite cameras and a big meanie computer system that can do loop-de-loos, act psychic, and track a poor sleeky geek gallivanting all around the world on a mission — shockingly — he didn’t ask for. Well, perhaps he did.

But before I go deeper into this, uh, cinematic muck, I should ask you if you remember the movie, “Eagle Eye?” I reviewed it back last September. I was under-impressed with it. In fact, I barely remember much about it … but I have “Echelon Conspiracy” to remind me. Same story, but told even more ineptly. Here is the gist: Our technological hubris comes back to haunt us. Big monster computers will turn on us. “Hal” (from “2001 Space Odyssey,” don’t ya’ know) is just hell misspelled … blah, blah, blah.

Max Peterson (Shane West), computer wizard, while in exotic Bangkok, gets an anonymous present: a cool cell phone. It not only stores the latest tunes and can link him to his Facebook page, but it also tells him how to win at slot machines, how to find the hot chicks, and what stocks will pay off big time.

Yep, “Echelon Conspiracy” is one solid piece of … solid science fiction … with enough immature male fantasy thrown in to trigger the gag reflex. The immature movie-going male’s gal-pal date can get all slobbery over Shane, so there is something for everyone.

Anyway, if it is too good to be true, it certainly is. In this case, the bad news about the cell phone is not the bill, it is that it turns on our little stud-buddy and tells him that it (the phone) has killed before and he is literally next on the list.

So what is behind this sinister cell phone? Why the NSA of course. And Martin Sheen plays the NSA director. Martin blows a gasket every few seconds and plays the Tasmanian Devil Boss. And Ving Rheams plays an FBI agent with all the passion of pop-sickle stick. Both deserve sympathy cards … or should fire their agents … I am not sure which. Perhaps both.

 Of course there are car chases, explosions and a plane crash but nothing saves this clunker. I have been watching “24” (Season Last — if there is a God) on TV and I have been thinking: Is every administration corrupt and, at the same time, omnipotent? If so, why can’t we spare more than Jack Bauer to get the bad guys?

 Speaking of television: “Echelon Conspiracy” doesn’t even deserve to be an ABC movie of the week. This weekend, I had three choices: “The Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience,” “Echelon Conspiracy,” or smashing my left hand pinkie with an anvil.

 I should have chosen the anvil.

“Echelon Conspiracy” earns one bow tie out of five but only because it was filmed in color.