STEALTH Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Columbia Pictures
Grade: C-
Directed by: Rob Cohen
Written by: W.D. Richter
Cast: Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Sam Shepard, Joe
Morton, Richard Roxburgh
Screened at: Loews 34th St., NYC, 7/31/05 “War is not a video game,” states one earnest military officer, but with the help of director Rob Cohen and scores of techies, “Stealth” goes ahead ironically to show just the reverse. “Stealth” is yet another made-for-cinema video game, this one featuring BT’s headache-inducing music directed to any in the audience who need more than wall-to-wall explosions to get their testosterone surging toward the stratosphere. There’s one good feature about rampant computer-generated imagery, however. Whenever the picture comes down to a human level and notwithstanding scripter W.D. Richter’s often silly dialogue, the talky scenes seem mighty good. In other words if someone is banging a hammer into your head and suddenly stops to talk nonsense instead, you’ll think once again that life is good. If we in the U.S. are to give even the slightest credence to what some of our enemies have said, the American government will have problems sending our uniformed youth to the corners of the world simply because we are not as willing as those in some cultures to tolerate significant casualties. In that respect, the particular stealth plane of the movie’s title makes sense. The snazzy flying object can go mach 3, which would translate to almost 2,300 miles per hour, but even if shot down, nobody dies. That’s because there are no human beings aboard. According to Captain Cummings (Sam Shepard), who is obsessed with proving the worth of his pet project, the unmanned plane is equipped with artificial intelligence that can not only understand orders, but can learn by overhearing the military people discuss plans and objectives. This aircraft is so smart that, once becoming full of itself, it can even disobey a direct order. When EDI (Extreme Deep Invader), as the A.I. Jet which was created by a Dr. Orbit (Richard Foxburgh) is named, heads to Siberia to drop a payload of bombs, ignoring orders to return to base, World War III is a possibility. Three Navy pilots chosen from an applicant pool of some 500–Ben (Josh Lucas), Kara (Jessica Biel), and Henry (Jamie Foxx), are entrusted with the task of aborting EDI. More important to the plot are the military expeditions that the four planes actually do accomplish. For example, in the earliest case, Ben ignores orders to avoid bombing a key site in Rangoon, where three major terrorist leaders have gathered, and assured that there would be no collateral damage in the downtown Myanmar capital, proceeds to blast the site. No collateral damage. After all that excitement, there’s time for some more excitement, that is to see the pilots stripped down to their swim trunks for some R&R in Thailand–where Ben and Kara predictably acquire the hots for each other. (The film crew were on site in Thailand, which joined Australia and New Zealand to complete the film.) Then a mission around Pakistan to wipe out a terrorist next before EDI heads to Siberia to ignite a major war. Jessica Biel looks so good with her hair down, as shown in a Thai restaurant wherein the script allows Henry to pick up a sizzling local woman to form a double date with Kara and Ben, that we wonder why she’d ever tie it up outside her aircraft. Josh Lucas and Jessica Biel have pretty decent chemistry, the simmer raised to a boiling point when Ben moves in to rescue Kara–who has had to eject in North Korea where she falls under fire from members of the Axis of Evil. The picture, despite its cardboard characters, features director Cohen’s advantageously using some cutting-edge technology such as Tergen (terrain generator) to create virtual backgrounds and another techie device that allows the planes to spin about in assorted angles. Rated PG-13. 121 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
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