Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a rather in-depth and spoiler-filled review of the upcoming popcorn action flick STEALTH from Rob Cohen. When I say spoiler-filled I mean it. The review is pretty clearly marked, but if you wander into the spoiler-land you'll know stuff you don't want to know. I now know something I wish I didn't before. But hey... I also might have just blown off seeing the movie anyway as the trailers make it look like bottom of the barrel trash. However, the below review, while not 100% positive says it's a lot of fun. Never can tell, can ya'? Enjoy the review!
STEALTH Review
Hey guys, I just saw Stealth, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised…
I thought it was going to be utter garbage, but it turned out to be… OK, despite the lackluster trailers and horrible tagline (I mean, “Fear the Sky?” that’s just retarded)… Of course, I got to see it for free, so that helped it, but I’ll just get to the review.
The Graphics:
The CGI is really what makes this movie, I have to tell you it was often breathtaking. I have no idea where Rob Cohen and his producers got the money to finance these shots, but it’s worth it. There’s aren’t many scenes where these jets don’t look real, so at least it has that going for it. Of course, the camera rarely stops shaking enough to get perfect shots, but that’s next.
Cinematography:
There have been a lot of people complaining about directors never letting the camera stop moving enough to get a good shot at the action, and I agree about half the time. In “Stealth,” it seems like Cohen was trying to show a strong dichotomy between the air and the ground by trying to make the air shaky and the ground clear, but in both, there are just a lot of awkward angles and close-ups; not enough to make you hate the movie for them, but enough so that I was just a little irked.
The Music:
The soundtrack to the movie is horrible. The score is always over-bearing, and the rock music is awkward, annoying, wanna-be cool garbage.
The Actors:
Josh Lucas: Mildly annoying as the lead until mid-way though the movie, and even at this point, you only start to get interested because you want to find out what happens between him and the “Tin Man,” as they nick-name the plane.
Jessica Biel: I thought she was good enough in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the boobalicious heroine, and here she’s no less boobalicious (and the movie doesn’t skimp on ass shots), but she’s never truly believable as a A-1 Navy pilot. You never feel the balls-out toughness you’d assume she’d need to get ahead.
Jamie Foxx: Foxx is a cool actor, and he’s mostly amiable, except for when they give him a couple of crappy lines, but respectable over-all.
SPOILER:
Just under a third of the way through the movie, I remembered that people said his was only a supporting character, and he seemed to be such a part of the movie and the team, I wondered why that was. Right at the end of what I assume was the first act, you find out why. His death is appropriate, and you kind of feel for him, but the shot of him crashing is sort of weird, and I can’t decide whether it was in a good way or not.
END SPOILER.
“Tin Man:” There are probably going to be some people who think this movie is the next generation “Top Gun” and it sort of is, but you have to substitute Val Kilmer’s “Iceman” as the antagonist with this “Hal 9000” of the sky. Tin Man does get a couple of funny lines, but the voice can get a annoying by a smidgen. Of course, that could be what they were going for since he’s mostly the antagonist, and you’re mostly not supposed to like him.
THE PLOT
(SPOILERS!)
So, of course, the movie is about 3 super-pilots who are chosen to make up this new elite group of Navy counter-terrorists. It’s set in the “near-future,” so they have these spiffy new stealth fighters that look like they can kick some decent ass. They hear they’re going to get a new wingman, are irked because they love each other so much and think that it might be their human version of “Iceman,” the jackass, but find out that it’s this new revolutionary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, that’s a “learning computer.” The pilots run the gamut of emotions: Lucas is annoyed and skeptical, Biel is indifferent, and Foxx feels like it’s just here to help. They take it for a test spin to let “Tin Man” learn some of their tricks, and are thrown into a real mission against a terrorist group holing themselves up in the major metropolitan city of Rangoon, Myanmar (or as it’s known now, Burma). It’s rumored they are going to hit the US in a matter of hours, so they have to take down their headquarters ASAP. Their commanding officer (Sam Shepard in a believable role) orders them to follow through, but no one can figure out how to take it out without collateral damage… except for Tin Man. It tells them that someone can do it with a dangerous move that could black-out one of the pilots. Shepard orders Tin Man to do it, but Lucas disobeys orders and does it himself. Of course, he blacks out, but recovers in just enough time to survive and pull off the mission.
On their way back to their carrier, Tin Man is struck by lightning. The techs check him out, and it looks like he could be malfunctioning, but Shepard orders him back in the air, despite Lucas’ protest. During their next mission they have to stop some nukes in Tajikistan, but find out that if they take the nukes out, it’ll cause some radioactive fall out that will harm neighboring farmers, and eventually our “ally-nation” Pakistan. Lucas orders them away, but of course, Tin Man is malfunctioning, so it goes ahead with the attack and causes the collateral damage anyway. The others try to take Tin Man in, but Tin Man ignores them and picks a new target to go for. The three decide to take Tin Man out, and Foxx dies in the process.
Biel is damaged and told to head back to the carrier while Lucas goes after Tin Man, but she ends up crashing in North Korea. They could have killed her off here in a really cool and brutally fitting way, but I guess they wanted to keep it from being too bleak, and the love-connection between Biel and Lucas alive so they pussy out.
Lucas, meanwhile, is going after Tin Man, and after an implausible action scene where each has to refuel, and a dog fight with some Russians, he manages to convince Tin Man to go with him. Shepard, meanwhile, is worried that his order to send Tin Man back out will cause a scandal and have him court marshaled, so he decides to leave Beal in NK, and calls his politician buddy up to pull some strings to have Lucas killed so no one can testify. Shepard orders Lucas and Tin Man to an Alaskan military contractor for repairs, and they both realize that there’s something fishy going on, but go anyway. Lucas runs out of fuel again and crashes, the workers in the base try to kill Lucas, Lucas jumps into Tin Man, and they get out of there in a pretty sick, if pretty unbelievable, action sequence.
While Biel is in NK, she gets chased by some soldiers who have as good aim as any storm trooper from Star Wars, gets shot in a savage sniper sequence, but still manages to evade them just long enough for Lucas to come in and save her. Tin Man learns to do everything for your teammates and sacrifices himself to save them.
Everything about North Korea should have been taken out, it was dull and pointless. All it did was try to keep the relationship between Biel and Lucas alive, and the movie would have been much better without her.
END SPOILERS
So all in all, an OK flick. If you are down for great CGI and can deal with plot holes, go see a matinee. Better yet, buy a ticket for Batman Begins and sneak in.
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