Stealth Movie Review:

By Sanket ‘frequent flier’ Kambli

Stealth is about a pilot-less futuristic fighter jet which goes rogue, and this rogue jet or EDI=Extreme Deep Invader(spelled as Eddy) makes the movie smarter and more ambitious than it first appears. Amid the dogfight sequences (including a truly magnificent slow-motion crash and a scary pilot-eject at 35,000 feet) and requisite gratuitous shots of Jessica Biel in a bikini, screenwriter W.D. Richter ("Big Trouble in Little China") sneaks in the dangers of win-at-all-costs counter-terrorism and a solid search-and-rescue third act that has little to do with the crazy runaway plane. Biel ("Blade: Trinity"), Josh Lucas ("Sweet Home Alabama") and Jamie Foxx (contracted to a supporting role before "Ray" put him on Hollywood's A-list) play Navy pilots who make up an elite emergency strike force in ultra-high-tech jets that fly in to blow up terrorists and stolen nuclear warheads on a moment's notice. The specifics of these incidents are often logically ridiculous, and they get even more so after the team is forced to accept the computerized plane into their ranks as an experiment. When a lightning strike turns its circuits into bunk ("EDI is war plane. EDI must have targets," it declares in an intimidating monotone), the fight is on to bring the thing down. Director Rob Cohen sets the stage with satellite shots showing worldwide locations, then zooms in and in and in to catch up with realistic (though CGI-generated) canyon-charging flight sequences jazzed up further with creative editing. He hires great actors like Sam Shepard and Joe Morton for supporting roles as the pilots' clashing commanders, one of whom knew the dangers of the rogue plane and let it fly anyway. The script even allows for a little honest (if overly simplistic) philosophical debate about the civilian casualties and the dehumanizing effects of turning warfare into a video game...before turning hypocritical when the pilots violate two foreign countries' airspaces, then shoot down their quite justified defenders.

"Stealth" is far more concerned with being cool than with being smart, so contrivances, plot holes and conspicuous overproduction are constantly pecking away at the movie's defendable assets. With the SPFX being so good the dog-fights and city attacks are just beautiful works of visual-art candy. There's this insane floating gas-station that of course gets "dismantled" and it was pretty nice, as improbable as it was. Even the impossible aerobatics look good. At one point EDI turns around at super sonic speed and shoots down a plane as it flies by him. EDI was also good. He's smart and evolving but they just take it as far as they could have. But the story lags so much, there's nowhere to go with it. I wish they had done some SERIOUS damage in a big city, but movies rarely go there. They have to save the day by cutting the blue wire one second before everything goes boom. The movie sucks in many ways. But for some reason I had fun anyway. Because I love jets, I love stories about AI, especially tough AI’s with emotions, because I love well-accomplished SPFX and the score rocked and rocked HARD.