Shia LaBeouf brings restless physical energy and a willingness to look foolish that we value. We are less persuaded when he has to keep a poorly written character interesting by sheer effort.
Fi1m perspective
LaBeouf wears a good deal of eyeliner as Clodio Pulcher in Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis (2024), with no apparent fear of looking ridiculous. We admired his nerve, but kept wondering what film he thought he was in. Aubrey Plaza's Wow Platinum is more satisfying: she seems to have worked out how seriously to take the script and decided to enjoy herself. LaBeouf is willing, but we are less sure what he thinks the scene needs.
The early appeal was easier to place: fast talk and restless movement. Even Stevens (2000–2003), in which he played Louis Stevens, established him with young audiences before Holes (2003) and the breakthrough of Disturbia (2007). By Transformers (2007), he was a blockbuster lead as Sam Witwicky. That was a plausible fit for his restless acting, provided the films gave Sam something worth being agitated about.
In Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), the writing fails him. Alex Kurtzman, Ehren Kruger and Roberto Orci supply plenty of information to follow, but little reason to care about Sam. Neither his Sam nor Megan Fox's Mikaela Banes gets much dialogue worth listening to. We need to want their company when the fighting stops, and the film never makes that happen. It would be unfair to blame LaBeouf for the muddled storytelling, but his familiar bustle cannot make these exchanges worth waiting for.
The move towards independent films from the early 2010s offered other uses for that intensity. His later work allows more stillness, with a grounded ensemble performance in Fury (2014) and emotional force in American Honey (2016). Honey Boy (2019), which he wrote and starred in, gives him more personal material. These are better reasons to follow him than the robot sequels, but Megalopolis leaves us wary of taking visible effort as proof that a performance works. Start with American Honey; Clodio can wait.
Biography
Shia LaBeouf is an American actor and filmmaker. He began his career as a child performer and gained early recognition for his role as Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens (2000–2003), for which he received a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003.
LaBeouf transitioned to feature films with Holes (2003) and went on to star in several high-profile productions, including I, Robot (2004), Constantine (2005), Disturbia (2007), the Transformers trilogy (2007–2011) as Sam Witwicky, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) as Mutt Williams. He has also directed short films such as Let's Love Hate (2004) and Maniac (2011).
His later credits include Fury (2014), American Honey (2016), Borg vs McEnroe (2017), Honey Boy (2019), The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), Pieces of a Woman (2020), and Megalopolis (2024) as Clodio Pulcher.
