I like films of this type, and I was ready to be entertained by 'Stealth', but really ...
The comments above have picked up the many, many plot holes and character clichés, so I won't bore you by repeating them, but what really annoyed me about this film was the pernicious brand of politics that it peddles. This is real Black Hat / White Hat stuff - don't look for subtlety. Judging by the plot of 'Stealth', the US military nowadays is almost entirely concerned to avoid civilian casualties (how many Iraqi dead now?) and take out cartoon terrorists on the basis of its faultless intelligence information (!).
You may think that this kind of criticism amounts to going after a fly with an elephant gun - this is after all supposed to be a simple action movie with a vaguely sci-fi premise - but there was a good film to be made about the moral implications of the US's love affair with military high technology and its deep reluctance to risk the lives of its servicemen and -women. 'Stealth' isn't it. This is a film so deeply wedded to cliché that it kills off its leading black character simply to give the white male lead a free shot at the female lead. It even establishes Jaime Foxx's character beforehand as a stud and yet has him express no interest in the gorgeous female pilot played by Jessica Biel. Apparently the colour bar is alive and well. Biel's character, carefully established as tough, capable and clever, the equal of her male colleagues, has to be dumped behind enemy lines purely so that she can be rescued by the hero. Everything in the film reeks of a conformist 50s Cold War mentality, with the faceless 'terrorists' replacing the Soviet Russians, American 'traitors' as scapegoats for the failures of American policy, and the gender and colour roles clearly marked out and policed.
The solitary exception to the cardboard, one-dimensional characterisation is Sam Shepard's Captain George Cummings. Shepard is credible as a soldier and commander - the leads are all far too glossy - and his character has some complexity. At times he seems to be acting in a different, better film.
The CGI effects are up to the usual standards, but this isn't even a notable effects movie (Biel's bod is the most arresting effect on display, and that only briefly). And like everyone else, I have no idea why the film is called 'Stealth'.
The comments above have picked up the many, many plot holes and character clichés, so I won't bore you by repeating them, but what really annoyed me about this film was the pernicious brand of politics that it peddles. This is real Black Hat / White Hat stuff - don't look for subtlety. Judging by the plot of 'Stealth', the US military nowadays is almost entirely concerned to avoid civilian casualties (how many Iraqi dead now?) and take out cartoon terrorists on the basis of its faultless intelligence information (!).
You may think that this kind of criticism amounts to going after a fly with an elephant gun - this is after all supposed to be a simple action movie with a vaguely sci-fi premise - but there was a good film to be made about the moral implications of the US's love affair with military high technology and its deep reluctance to risk the lives of its servicemen and -women. 'Stealth' isn't it. This is a film so deeply wedded to cliché that it kills off its leading black character simply to give the white male lead a free shot at the female lead. It even establishes Jaime Foxx's character beforehand as a stud and yet has him express no interest in the gorgeous female pilot played by Jessica Biel. Apparently the colour bar is alive and well. Biel's character, carefully established as tough, capable and clever, the equal of her male colleagues, has to be dumped behind enemy lines purely so that she can be rescued by the hero. Everything in the film reeks of a conformist 50s Cold War mentality, with the faceless 'terrorists' replacing the Soviet Russians, American 'traitors' as scapegoats for the failures of American policy, and the gender and colour roles clearly marked out and policed.
The solitary exception to the cardboard, one-dimensional characterisation is Sam Shepard's Captain George Cummings. Shepard is credible as a soldier and commander - the leads are all far too glossy - and his character has some complexity. At times he seems to be acting in a different, better film.
The CGI effects are up to the usual standards, but this isn't even a notable effects movie (Biel's bod is the most arresting effect on display, and that only briefly). And like everyone else, I have no idea why the film is called 'Stealth'.