A super-secret "smart plane" whose electronic brain develops a mind of its own is at the heart of director Rob Cohen's whiz-bang Stealth.
Cohen is known for his fast and furious action-packed style in such films as The Fast and the Furious and XXX. Stealth is no exception, laden as it is with spiffy gadgets that allow the plane -- which its handlers call "Eddie" but which begins calling itself "The Tin Man" -- to begin issuing its own orders.
This technological marvel, with its myriad blinking lights and 22nd-century look (Stealth is set in some not-so-distant future), threatens to render human pilots obsolete and turn war into a giant video game played in some distant control room. You might think a movie like Stealth, where the jet airplane is the title star, would also render actors obsolete. But veteran screenwriter W.D. Richter, whose credits include Dracula, Brubaker and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake, knows character development is paramount to making a film like Stealth more than just cool hardware.
Although top-billed Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx hasn't much more than a filler role, there's more meat in the script to chew on for Jessica Biel and especially Josh Lucas. The three play Navy fliers whose new partner turns out to be the Tin Man. Lucas, who has the good looks of a young Paul Newman and lots of charisma, and Biel play fliers who are involved in a budding romance that's upset by the antics of the prototype jet. Although the plot leads to a corny, impossible-to-believe ending, much of Stealth is gee-whiz exciting.
Tin Man has been foisted on the three experienced pilots by their skipper, Capt. George Cummings, played by Sam Shepard with straight-arrow determination. The new jet, officially known as a UCAV (unmanned combat aerial vehicle) and nicknamed "EDI" (pronounced "Eddie"), is his baby. He wants his elite test pilots to work with it so it will go into mass production. "It's the future of digital warfare," he tells them. But Lucas' Lt. Ben Gannon is pretty much unconvinced.
Trouble begins shortly after a lightning strike zaps the Tin Man's fancy equipment and it begins challenging its three wing partners. Detonating a nuclear facility against orders and unleashing a cloud of radioactive waste is not in the rule books. No wonder the three humans are getting more than a little nervous.
Cohen has staged some unnerving stunts, beginning right from the start as the test pilots zoom across a mountainous landscape, sometimes only yards above the ground. There hasn't been this much sky excitement since the attack on the Death Star in the original Star Wars. Death-defying stunts -- and one that doesn't defy death in a stunning mountain crash staged in slow motion -- pop up throughout the film, each more breathtaking than the last. A sequence at an airborne refueling station, where the Tin Man develops explosively dangerous ideas, is fraught with suspenseful anticipation of something awful about to happen.
One of the most exciting moments comes when a pilot is ejected from a jet and hurtles toward the ground, while at the same time dodging flaming hunks of metal that are also falling all around.
Through all the skyborne adventures, the Tin Man "speaks" in a soothingly mellow voice that grows increasingly creepy, sort of like HAL, the menacing computer of Stanley Kubrick's landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Lucas, with his megawatt smile, is a charismatic figure who looks every inch the hero in the increasingly dangerous situations. He may look like a young Paul Newman, but I hope he can act, too. In Stealth he isn't called on to do much more than look brave and daring while undergoing rigorous physical trials. Mission accomplished in this case.
Biel, who manages to look va-va-voom even in a flight suit, has good chemistry with Lucas and makes for a sympathetic character, especially after she finds herself trapped in a deadly situation.
Richter lets his characters pause to philosophize about the nature of warfare and their own destinies. Cohen plays it against a swooping, soaring background. That's all to the good. If only they could have come up with an ending that didn't depend on worn-out movie clichés and wasn't so wildly unbelievable. Once soaring, here Stealth crashes to Earth.
***
Stealth
Starring: Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Sam Shepard, Richard Roxburgh, Joe Morton.
Rated: PG-13, contains violence, brief profanity.
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