Movie Review by Dr Kuma
Starring: Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Sam Shepard, Richard Roxburgh
Director: Rob Cohen
“War is a terrible thing and we are its tools!” cries the main character in the most recent video game parading as a movie STEALTH. Strangely for a man that comes across as a bit dim, he’s totally right on both counts.
STEALTH, as many will say, is an update of TOP GUN for the naughty generation with a bit of 2001 thrown in. That’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, the movie, not the amount of computer generated shots in this “film” – I’m sure there’s more than that. The computer “pilot” even sounds like HAL.
The story is woven around the fact that in the near future, the Navy develops a fighter jet piloted by an artificial intelligence computer. The “computer” jet is placed as a wingman for three of the Navy’s top fliers to learn combat manoeuvres but when lightning hits the plane it becomes an airborne Frankenstein and develops a mind of its own. It’s now down to the humans to prevent the computer from selecting sites of its own choosing and starting a war.
As I mentioned before, this is more of a computer game than a film and one wonders if the director Rob Cohen was replaced by a computer in pre-production.
The stars are functional as teen heart throbs, as it’s teens that this movie will appeal to. It’s just a shame that in getting them off their arses, from the bedroom to the cinema, the makers treat them to yet more computer generated images, the only difference is that they can’t control these scenes from their seats via a control on their X Box. If one could I’m sure many of us would have switched it off before we got to level two at the screening I attended.
Josh Lucas, the hunk, is so like a young Kevin Costner, in uniform and out, that you think that you’re watching a follow up to NO WAY OUT. Jessica Biel is sex on a stick and brings a little of the human touch to a very automated movie buts it’s Jamie Foxx who really blots his copy book here. I heard he made this before RAY, I hope so, as he must have still been a character when signing the dotted line as he’s the weakest part of a weak film. I really hope that he doesn’t become the next Cuba Gooding Jnr as although this is a bit of a stinker it’s never as bad as Gooding’s RAT RACE – one of the worst films of all time which Gooding made after bagging his own Oscar. What Sam Shepard is doing here is beyond me as he belongs in a much better film. The lines are so bad in parts and the juxtaposition so contrived that really it should have been called Stench- that’s how bad the lines are sometimes!
If you’re young, dumb and full of male testosterone, then this is a must and I have to say that it does have some great scenes, especially a free fall scene which is real edge of the seat stuff. If however you like reading books for good stories and like turning a page instead of twisting a joy stick, or like going to the movies to get away from the computer graphics then stay away. It’s not a real turkey, these birds can fly, but it’s a kestrel compared to a Top Gun Eagle.
Dr Kuma’s verdict: I’ve not seen people laugh like this for some time, so perhaps it’s worth going to see in these troubled times, although it has to be said, the laughs were at its expense. X Box office guaranteed.
