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- NoName.Mycrowsoft.com - |
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IvanF's Mycrowsoft Noname Brand Website - |
IvanF's Cut and Paste, No-Name Theatrical
Review of
Stealth 2005
- IvanFian written August 5th, 2005 -
"It's been almost a week since I saw Stealth in theatres... making this review one of my most belated movie reviews I've done in a long time...
... but it's not hard to say why...
I feel stupider from just thinking about Stealth.
... short story short, the movie was alright, for the most part... but I was still so bitterly disappointed in the end...
I mean, seriously! The trailers made Stealth look like THE BEST MOVIE EVAR.
And instead, what I got instead?... was simply a film that absolutely made no logical sense whatsoever...
Shock and awe.
And okay, for those who haven't seen the movie yet, let me spoil the whole thing for you.
Ahem...
Plane downloads Incubus MP3s.
Incubus kills Jamie Foxx.
Plane kills itself from learning how shitty Incubus really is...
The End.
There... you don't need to watch the movie anymore...
I mean seriously, a fighter jet that plays rock music for no apparent reason whatsoever? WTF?...
Hell, even the name of the movie doesn't make sense, as the Talon fighter pilots in Stealth were anything but stealthy as they were blowing random sum' bitches up...
...
To be honest, after watching the Air Force done mostly right throughout 8+ seasons of Stargate SG-1, Stealth was pretty embarrassing for the most part... All the radio chatter felt infantile and amateurish in the film, as if the actors had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Or even how to deliver their lines...
I was at least hoping for some Terminator 2.5 action or something, as that is pretty much what I expected from Stealth... Instead, all we got was a bunch of bad quantum computing technobabble, some jackass plane jacking every MP3 from the net, and the T2 scientist guy not even fucking dying in the end... I mean, WTF? Wasn't he supposed to blow himself up to save the future or something? I want my motherfucking money back... I mean, it's like Bill Paxton surviving in a movie or something. It just ain't right...
All the characters were pretty damn awful in this film... I expected the illegal Air Force romance between Ben and Kara to go somewhere. And yet it was barely mentioned throughout the film, with just a half assed happy ending in the end at a fucking funeral, for Christ's sakes... I mean seriously, did these two characters have any point whatsoever? Kara was just there behind enemy lines the whole time, being too damn dumb to actually hide from North Koreans. And Ben (or should I call him generic male lead #1?) did nothing but chase around his new best friend in the sky, then blowing a whole bunch of shit up for who knows what reason, really...
And seriously, WTF was up with the plot? I mean, Edi, an intelligent plane... that turns evil when it's struck by lightning? WTF?...
How the fuck is lightning supposed to turn a plane evil?...
And then the fucking most moronic part of the movie was... why the fuck did Edi turn good again?...
It turned out that the plane was simply attaining sentience... and it apparently thought that the best way to go about things after it was born, was to blow up every single living shit thing it found in its global databases... umm, nice logic there...
And then it gets Jamie Foxx killed. For really no apparent reason whatsoever, besides the god-awful influence of Incubus, I mean...
And then Edi decides to use his newfound feelings of guilt, to try to blow Ben out of the fucking sky with some ridiculous fuel explosion in the atmosphere? WTF?...
And then WTF happens? The plane and Ben become best buddies or some shit like that?...
WHAT THE FUCK?!?...
...
The real problem with Stealth, was that it had no true villain... I mean, after Edi turned out to be an alright guy or something, I expected some sort of sad conspiracy theory to formulize or something... but apparently, the writers weren't good enough to actually think of one...
The admiral guy, whatever his name was, just turned out to be a wuss in the end. He wanted the plane to succeed, and it didn't... and then to avoid court martial, he tried to kill every single witness and then off himself on the fucking john?... umm... okay...
The business guy, whatever his name was, was just there for the sake of being there. Obviously, every evil plane needs an evil businessman behind the desk... but, umm... the evil businessman didn't do anything but go to the fucking washroom as his admiral suicided himself... umm... okay...
And I expected Keith Orbit to have had some sort of hand in making Edi sentient or something. Because the stupidest thing would've been, for him to never test the fucking plane against possible lightning strikes before he fucking loaded it with tons of weapons... But apparently, he really was just that damn dumb. In fact, he wasn't even evil at all, as it took just one fucking line of guilt from Edi for Orbit to suddenly become the good guy driving away in a fucking Pontiac G6... WTF?...
With no true villain, and no true hero to give a real damn about... somebody please tell me why Stealth should still deserve the best movie of the year award, please?...
... it's flying under the radar now, as far as I'm concerned...
...
But of course, just like with every other brainless action movie out there, Stealth ain't so bad if you shut off your brain while watching...
Jessica Biel was definitely hot in this movie. Her face is just simply adorable, and she suited the pilot role thanks to all the muscles she still had left from her time doing Blade Trinity... Now, it absolutely made no fucking sense why she and Ben would get shore leave in Thailand after just motherfucking nuking a terrorist building in clear broad public view. But this was one decision that I for one won't argue with, as that bikini scene by the waterfall was probably the goddam highlight of the entire film... Every movie should have one, and every man should have her...
Action wise, I guess Stealth can hold its own from time to time... The CG was impeccable, as not once did I ever think the Talon fighters didn't look real on screen. Then again, they did look plain and barren, even compared to fighter jets and cars done in video games these days, so... The thing is, some of the chase sequences up in the air weren't bad. Jamie Foxx was a complete moron for trying to use a missile at close range against Edi in the cliffs, but at least the actor definitely held his own in holding that scene up to T2 quality Oscar standards...
Now, Stealth wasn't a complete mistake of biblical proportions on Jamie Foxx's career, like Catwoman was to Halle Berry. Still, it's quite a shame that the actor got caught up in this film, after pulling off Collateral and Ray last year... Nevertheless, Jamie Foxx saved himself mercilessly by being wiped from the film before Edi and Ben started having friendly vodka in fucking Russia together as chums. And for the first half of the movie, Foxx wasn't bad at all... He had some good flirting lines with Jessica Biel and that fugly Thai woman. And he provided the only real character development of the film, when he talked with Ben over the whole Kara thing at dinner...
Now, Stealth definitely was so damn stupid at times, that it simply wasn't funny. But I definitely did enjoy myself for the ride, a couple times at least or something... Because was it just me, or did Stealth feel like a weird mix of Terminator and Team America? Or T&A, if you take out the "I" from Team, I mean... Everything in Stealth just felt like a weird mix of technobabble fused with random terrorist slayings, as pretty much every Axis of Evil group of people were annihilated in this film. From Russians, to Middle Easterns, to especially everyone's favourite "ronery" North Koreans, every American enemy got their asses kicked by the Terminator sometime up in the skies...
And oh yes, we got plenty of fucking explosions in the film. I like explosions...
... as there was absolutely no stealth when it came to hiding that kind of shit...
As yes, this film was just plain ridiculous in the end, with absolutely no story or character development or any sort of artificial intelligence whatsoever... It was like the film was directed by a UCAV or something. Or fucking Incubus, for that matter...
I can't even say the movie was fun. As I had to shut off my brain so far gone to the point, that even the parts of my mind that get excited from explosions and fucking ice cream trucks, went dark from the complete blackout...
So unfortunately, Stealth wasn't the greatest story ever told like I was expecting it to become from all the trailers...
Fear the sky, they said...
... but heh... the only thing I fear now, is watching this movie a second time around...
... and watching my IQ points drop for every single iota of a second that I do...
... so I'll be sure to keep count, as soon as I pick up the DVD...
... I was never really smart when it comes to my money, afterall..."
Film Design - 6.0
Enjoyment Factor - 6.5
Overall (not an average)
- 6.0
(0.5 out of 4 stars)
___________________________________
- Commentary from a friend -
"Umm…well…yes, I was one of the few (no joke, as the film as performed poorly at the box office) that saw "Stealth" back on Saturday, July 30th at 9:30pm…and to be frank, this film was entertaining enough…it just wasn’t that special either. This is because the film had a minimized plot that pretty much focused on how spectacular the air defying stunts were.
The film was directed by the Rob Cohen, who has previously directed such films as "The Fast & the Furious" and "XXX". Now, I must say that the former film was a well done film about drag racing, but the follow-up film "XXX" was just pure exploitation of all things Sony and loud music it leaves one with a bad taste in one’s mouth. I feel bad for Samuel L. Jackson in that film. No really, I truly do.
This current film, while better than "XXX" which is not saying much, is about a group (three actually) of air force stealth fighter pilots. They are essentially given missions to "save the world" from terrorists and such. These pilots are Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas), Kara Wade (Jennifer Biel), and Henry Purcell (Jamie Foxx). Now, the first third to half of the film was decent enough as we got our fellow pilots kicking some ass against the enemy. As well, it was during this time that our pilots were introduced to a UCAV nicknamed Edi that was a robotic fighter jet programmed to do what humans could, but would then eliminate any human casualty because of it being totally computerized.
Now, the way that Edi turns evil by being struck by lightning, and then turning good by falling in water was just absurd and completely unimpressive. As well, the jets creator, Keith Orbit, was an interesting enough character until the end scenes where he completely denied his past behaviors to save his hide. But, in his offense, what is a nerd really to do. However, it was still annoying nonetheless.
I must say that Biel does look mighty fine and gorgeous in this film, if not for that interlude scene in Thailand by the waterfall for her to be in a bikini. I thank the gods of Kobol for that…or not…but nevermind…
Also, Captain Cummings as played by Sam Shepherd started off decent enough, but his final motives to commit suicide was just completely inane. And besides, it left that Congressman/Senator (which the writer and/or director decided to always have his scenes seen through a window, which was just stupid) to do what he wanted with no punishment. I would have preferred the Congressman dude to kill Cummings himself, and the Congressman could off himself or some such shit like that…but I digress…
Overall, this film was entertaining enough for what it was. It had some decent fighter jet scenes, but left me unimpressed. Especially, Gannon was completely stupid (or the writer of this film actually) in not ending with a big kiss with Wade, or with a decent enough relationship. Therefore, I shall give this film a 1.5/4 stars and a 6.5/10."
Film Design - 6.0
Enjoyment Factor - 6.5
Overall (not an average) - 6.5
(1.5 out of 4 stars)
- Risen Phoenix -