| STEALTH |
 2005 - USADirector: Rob Cohen
- Reviewed by Vickie
Sadly, Stealth isn’t any of those things. In fact, it’s boring, unimaginative and about 30 minutes too long. Not to mention the fact that the filmmakers unwisely decided to allow Josh Lucas to be the star and the guy on whose shoulders rests the fate of, well, not much, actually. Set in “the near future” (as per the onscreen graphics at the outset), the story centers on a trio of elite Naval Air Force pilots: all-American Ben Gannon (Lucas, sporting a nice toupée!), alpha female Kara Wade (Jessica Biel, sporting a nice set of gigantic biceps!) and brilliant hotshot Henry Purcell (Jamie Foxx, sporting a horribly two-dimensional character!). The three of them have been a team for a long while, but their commanding officer (Sam Shepard) informs them that they’ll now be flying with a fourth member—a super-high-tech plane outfitted with an artificial intelligence that acts as its “pilot.” The gang is appropriately skeptical, probably because (like the rest of the world) they’ve seen movies like The Terminator and The Matrix, and they know that no good can come of a machine with so much power. It corrupts, after all. Sure enough, all it takes is one stray bolt of lightning and suddenly “Eddie” the plane gets kind of full of itself. Cocky. Rebellious. And really, really dedicated to executing attack missions, both real and intended for simulation only, regardless of what its orders actually are. That becomes problematic when Eddie, clearly filled with a tad too much self-confidence, takes it upon itself to solve the world’s problems by setting out to single-handedly eradicate America’s enemies around the globe. Moderate amounts of inconsequential mayhem ensue. There are several cargo-holds full of problems with this movie, not the least of which is the fact that the Evil Plane is never evil at all. The trailers would have you believe that the entire planet is in peril as Eddie engages in massively destructive behavior, but it doesn’t. In fact, there are only about 10 minutes of the film where Eddie is even remotely unlikable. (I actually kind of liked Eddie. It was the most interesting character in the movie!) The filmmakers totally failed in their efforts to make the plane the villain—it comes off more like an overly dedicated and misunderstood marine than anything else. Now, a summer movie about a killer airplane blasting the hell out of major cities while a team of pilots try to stop it would be fun! This isn’t that movie, though. Then there are the numerous plot diversions from what should be a straightforward story (plane bad = must stop bad plane!). Why, for example, do the three pilots waste a good 15 minutes of film time on vacation in Thailand only half-an-hour into the movie?!? That entire sequence brings the proceedings to a screeching, needlessly expositionary and largely pointless halt. An aerial battle! Lightning hits Eddie! It looks like it might affect his CPU and make things dangerous… so let’s enjoy a repose in the tropics for a few days while stuff happens on the aircraft carrier that will never be explained later! Likewise, there are so many awful and useless story “twists” that it feels like the filmmakers tried to slap together four or five different movies into one (corrupt military officials! a shoot-out at a secret base! hi, North Korea, how are ya?! forbidden love blossoms!). Had they stuck to a simpler story and trimmed a whole lot of the fat, Stealth might have been a leaner, meaner movie. As for the cast, meh. While I’m glad Jessica Biel and her kick-ass arms are getting some work, why must her character sport the tightest uniform known to man? And why does she have to be smitten with one of her fellow pilots? Can’t she just be a great, strong character on her own, without forcing her into a drippy, unconvincing, lame-ass love story while dressed in Maxim-worthy clothes? Co-star Jamie Foxx did this movie before winning his Oscar, so his screen time is seriously limited. In fact (and skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to read a spoiler), his character isn’t in the film very much at all. The trailers would have you believe otherwise, but trust me. Don’t get too attached to Purcell. And what’s there to say about Josh Lucas and his perfect teeth? He goes out of his way to try to act his face off in this movie, but instead winds up as laughably intense. It’s the kind of overacting that makes me burst out laughing. There’s no grit to his character, and he looks like an actor playing dress-up in Air Force gear. By the time the movie drags itself to its painfully dull, snicker-inducing conclusion, he’s so preposterously over-the-top that I almost felt bad I could go on and on about Stealth and its shortcomings (the herky-jerky camera work, the nausea-worthy rapid-fire editing, the overuse of digitally animated planes that look fake…*sigh*), but I won’t. It was an interesting, high-concept idea that evidently became muddled and messy somewhere along the development path. Which is too bad, because I could use some good mindless fun this time of year, but I didn’t find any at this movie. |
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You know, I was really hoping this was going to be one of those
mindless, over-the-top, fun summer popcorn movies. The kind of movie
that you know in your heart (and your head) is pretty lame, but you
forgive it because it’s so shamelessly entertaining and silly.