Disturbia.

"In teen movies, almost any story, from The Taming of the Shrew to The Maltese Falcon, can be reconfigured into an exploration of the pressures and crushes of high school's senior year. So why not Disturbia, which lifts its premise from Alfred Hitchcock's provocative 1954 thriller Rear Window?" asks Liam Lacey in the Globe and Mail.

Well: "Don't bother trying to appreciate the awfulness of Disturbia with the sort of guilty pleasure indulgence that watching cheesy B-movies occasionally allows," warns Eric Kohn in the New York Press. "The sole point of interest is the surprising amount of talent involved in the production. Director DJ Caruso's ominous drama, The Salton Sea, had its moments. And Shia LaBeouf, a marvelously capable young actor whose role in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints resulted in one of last year's finest performances, here seems like a cardboard cut-out of himself."

"Disturbia will never be accused of undue originality, but its adherence to genre conventions works in its favor," writes AO Scott in the New York Times.

"Awful title aside, Disturbia's reworking of Rear Window for the YouTube generation is pretty nifty, drenching its tale of paranoid surveillance in the type of modern techno-gadgetry - DV camcorders, camera phones, various Apple products - that's helped transform privacy from a right into a luxury," writes Nick Schager at Slant.

"It isn't a bad movie, but you can find better movies in theaters right now, if you want to watch a good thriller," advises Jette Kernion at Cinematical.

More from Robert Wilonsky in the Voice and Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer.

"At 20, Shia LaBeouf (it's pronounced Shy-ah LaBuff) is already an accomplished actor with a lengthy résumé." Tasha Robinson interviews him for the AV Club. Related: Susan King's profile in the Los Angeles Times. Cinematical's Erik Davis notes that he'll be in the fourth Indiana Jones film, too.

Ellen McCarthy profiles David Morse for the Washington Post, where John Maynard finds the film "takes enough turns to keep you guessing until nearly the end."

Posted by dwhudson at April 13, 2007 1:16 PM