Stealth (2005)

User Rating:

4.8/10   

Director:

Rob Cohen

Writer (WGA):

W.D. Richter (written by)

Release Date:

29 July 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Fear The Sky

Plot:

Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control ... before it initiates the next world war.

Plot Keywords:

Airplane Accident | Compassionate Conservative | Shootout | Machismo | Seattle Washington

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Josh Lucas	...	Lt. Ben Gannon
Jessica Biel	...	Lt. Kara Wade
Jamie Foxx	...	Lt. Henry Purcell
Sam Shepard	...	Capt. George Cummings
Richard Roxburgh	...	Dr. Keith Orbit
Joe Morton	...	Capt. Dick Marshfield
Ian Bliss	...	Lt. Aaron Shaftsbury
Ebon Moss-Bachrach	...	Tim
Michael Denkha	...	Naval Controller
Rocky Helton	...	Master at Arms
Clayton Adams	...	USS Abraham Lincoln Sailor
Maurice Morgan	...	USS Abraham Lincoln Sailor
Christopher Naismith	...	USS Abraham Lincoln Sailor
Charles Ndibe	...	USS Abraham Lincoln Sailor
Nicholas Hammond	...	Executive Officer

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense action, some violence, brief strong language and innuendo.

Runtime:

121 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Korean | Russian | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS (8 channels) | DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Brazil:14 | Argentina:13 | Taiwan:PG-12 | Sweden:11 | Canada:14A | Norway:11 | France:U | Iceland:12 (video rating) | Iceland:14 (original rating) | South Korea:12 | Malaysia:U | USA:PG-13 (certificate #40124) | Australia:M | Singapore:PG | Ireland:12A | UK:12A | Hong Kong:IIA | Finland:K-15 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Canada:PG (British Columbia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Philippines:PG-13 | Mexico:B | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Australia

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

500 gallons of gasoline were used for the explosion in the Alaska airfield sequence. NASA had to be notified of it in advance because it was so big.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: The USS Abraham Lincoln is located in the Philippine Sea. The three Talons and the EDI fly westwards, to Myanmar. It is daylight in the Philippine Sea but nighttime in Myanmar. Although it is conceivable that they were flying from dawn westwards to where it was still just before dawn, there were a lot of people and traffic on the street, which would have indicated that it was early evening in Myanmar.

Quotes:

Lt. Kara Wade: You came back for me.

Movie Connections:

References 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Soundtrack:

Admiration

A movie I shouldn't have seen and neither should you

Every now and then a movie comes along that really makes you wonder at the depths of human nature, the very intricate framework that binds us together in society. Stealth is one such movie, if of course you replace "human nature" with "Jessica Biel's cleavage", and "intricate framework" with "mind-numbingly bad plot and acting".

It all begins simply enough with the same old introduction of the piloting dream team (for more information on high flying dream teams, please reference Top Gun, Apollo 13, and the 1992 Olympic Men's Basketball Finals). Surely enough, one of them is a visible minority, one a woman, and one a version of white machismo incarnate. So, at this point in the movie, can you already guess who's going to sacrifice themselves for the team, who's going to need rescuing, and who's going to save the day? Good, good, and we're only 30 seconds into the opening credits. Next, enter the 'wave of the future' that's obviously going to turn evil and yada-yada-yada. Then, of course, mysteriously relocate the technician who's nervous about the doomsday implications of said future-wave. Same old, same old. Can we see some boobies yet? Yes, yes we can.

We then continue aimlessly through this movie as it twists and turns… and twists some more… and then, seemingly at the end of its contortion, starts twisting back to where it came from – the sewer. Joined the whole way by bad dialog, a senseless plot and a host of mispronunciations, not the least of which was "Tajikistan" (pronounced tie-gee-kee-stan by our venerable commander), this movie begins on a downward spiral which ultimately emerges as a two hour Army recruitment commercial. Cue the rescue, and with it the fact that these pilots all have better aim than the guys trained to shoot, and you have a movie.

So, what was it about this movie that was supposed to be good again? Ah, I remember, the special effects, the ones that have been assaulting our eyes on TV every ten minutes for the past month and a half. They couldn't possibly fail there, right? Wrong. In some scenes, the planes would have been better off being constructed of plasticine, and the terrible digital flames marking the sight of one pilot's unfortunate and entirely foreseeable demise might as well have been drawn by hand for all the effect they had.

In short, this movie is awful, but who knows, someone out there might like it. So if you're the kind of person who still wonders how they get the caramel inside the Caramilk bar, go see this movie, otherwise, you might just go Oedipus on your eyes.