Josh Lucas as Lt. Ben Gannon
Jessica Biel as Kara Wade
Jamie Foxx as Henry Purcell
Sam Shepard as Capt. George Cummings
Richard Roxburgh as Keith Orbit
Joe Morton as Capt. Dick Marshfield
Ian Bliss as Lt. Aaron Shaftsbury
Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Josh Hudson
Michael Denkha as Naval Controller
Rocky Helton as Master at Arms
Summary:
High impact aerials (mostly digital, of course) and a bikini-clad Biel are not enough to make this turkey fly. Stealth caters to the adrenaline junkie, but is too far-fetched and down right silly to be taken seriously.
Story:
Three ace pilots – part of a special project with new state-of-the-art fighters – are told they are getting a fourth partner, which turns out to be a highly sophisticated, rock-and-roll-loving robot plane. After relenting and accepting the plane (called EDI – pronounced ‘Eddie’) into their fold, the trio later must turn on their new partner after a lightning strike and some faulty A.I. prompt the fighter to launch its own initiative against an innocent country.
Stealth is Rated PG-13 for intense action, some violence, brief strong language and innuendo.
What Worked:
The overall idea behind Stealth is an intriguing one – part War Games and part Top Gun meets 2001. The visual effects in movie are fairly effective. I liked the design of the Talon-class fighters flowed by Lucas, Foxx and Biel. EDI’s design is similar, but more rounded and sleek. All of the aerial work in Stealth was done digitally, with no actual flying taking place for the three main actors. Director Rob Cohen used the ‘shaky camera’ technique to show the power of the jets, which worked more often than not.
The performances in Stealth were kind of all over the map. Lucas seems to best grasp the confident swagger a pilot in his position would have, though he did borderline on over-dramatics a few times.
What Didn’t Work:
Any sense of realism this movie was striving for, it was just unable to attain. So many things were wrong
technical, physical, emotional
you name it. From the complete waste of Jamie Foxx – who really is only in the first half of the film, to the HAL 9000 rip-off that is EDI (yes, the plane talks), to the North Vietnam antics at the film’s climax. Ugh! Cohen needs to go back and take a high school Physics course and pay particular attention to the laws of momentum. I won’t spoil exactly what I am referring to here, but it seems obvious to me that once a pilot ejects from a very fast moving plane, that said plane – even after exploding – would be much too far away to come raining down its fiery remains on the parachute-deployed pilot who is slowly drift straight down!
How about following orders? Remember the line from A Few Good Men that went something like ‘We follow orders or people die!’? The notion is completely lossed on Lucas as he routinely talks down his superior officer and disobeys direct orders at least twice.
What about the awkward romance angle? It is a nuisance and probably gives us one of the worst final lines in a movie ever! It supposed to be funny, but it’s not.
There is so much more, but I really just want to get past this so here is the bottom line on Stealth: If you want to see fast planes and Biel in a bikini, this is your movie. If you have ANY other needs or aspirations at all, stay home.
