“Stealth” (Columbia Pictures)
In the trailer for “Stealth” it looked like this film would be a “Top Gun” type of action adventure. It had a lot of airplane firepower on screen and three charismatic leads in Josh Lucas, Jessica Biehl and Jamie Foxx. It didn’t look like it could miss in being a techno-thriller of the first order. Well guess what It did. This “Bottom Gun” of a movie is as much a dud as a non-exploding bomb.
Nothing in this movie works from its script about a non-human piloted killer jet, to its bombings of individual countries – oops, we did it again! The dialogue is trite, its character motivations missing in action, and its ending straight out of the comic books. Poor Jamie Foxx, to go from “Ray” to this is an Oscar curse indeed.
Lucas, Biehl and Foxx play Naval pilots Gannon, Wade and Purcell. They are the hotshots of the fleet and have bright careers ahead of them. Then one day they are told they are getting a fourth member in their select air group. His name is Edi and he is a computer who flies a “stealth” machine. They object but their boss Captain Cummings (Sam Shepard) takes no arguments.
One day on a mission Edi gets struck by lightning (honestly that is what happens) and his computers go haywire. Next thing you know he is a killing machine. How can he be stopped Who really cares
Foxx does okay with this brief role in the film. He is just asked to be cocky and slightly funny. He can do that. Biehl is asked to be dramatic. She can’t do that. Watching her character pine away over Gannon is pathetic, and watching her character try to escape enemy troops in North Korea is embarrassing.
As for Lucas, well he seems to have a Paul Newman fixation. It’s something about the eyes. He does have nice blue ones but Newman had blue eyes and talent too.
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
“Stealth” does live up to its name since it flies completely undetected beneath the entertainment radar. Doesn’t even make so much as a blip of enjoyment. It does have a glossy look and some good CGI effects but looks and effects do not an entertaining movie make. ‘Stealth” delivers bombs, entertainment ones of the biggest kind.
I scored “Stealth” a not so secret 3 out of 10.
