When I went to see Stealth, I had my hopes up. I had seen the trailer and I was sure this was this generation's Top Gun. Oh boy, new jets with Jamie Fox as the dashing leader. It even had an evil drone aircraft with a mind of it's own and they had to take it down. This means it had something that Top Gun never had, a plot. That's what I got from the trailer.
Well the movie's marketing isn't true to the actual move. First of all, the posters for Stealth show Jamie Foxx in the middle with the other pilots on the sides. They portray Foxx's character, Lt. Henry Purcell as the leader. As it turns out, Purcell is nothing more than comic relief with his wise cracks and his womanizing. I think they show more than half of Jamie Foxx's dialog in the trailers. Well you can call it dialog but I wouldn't. The dialog isn't much better than what you'd find in a 1950s comic book, but more on that later. To add insult to injury, Purcell is killed off half way through the film. The way he's killed is very stupid and shows that the writer, director and producer of this movie think we're dumb. In the opening scenes were told that 400 pilots applied for the program and only three were selected. This means Purcell really has to be one Sierra Hotel naval aviator to be selected. However, Purcell dies by flying right into the side of a mountain while trying to shoot down "Eddie", the AI pilot that went a little funny in the head. During the scene Purcell flies dangerously close to the sides of a canyon. Missing them by what seems like mere inches. However he shots a missile and flies right into the explosion as it hits the mountain. It was a mistake a pilot with those skills shouldn't have made.
This scene is what's wrong with the movie. The dialog and logic are so stupid. In another scene Lt. Kara Wade's (Jessica Biel) plane is damaged and she has to bail out. The plain is traveling a lot faster than mach one. However when she bails out, the plain stays right above her and explodes. The debris falls straight down on the ejected Wade. The plane should have been a mile away by the time it exploded. The debris would have not fallen straight down either. It's an insult to the intelligence of the audience.
The other big problem is the dialog and logic. It's very dumb. At one point Purcell actually has to explain to his pilot buddies what a prime number is. A private moment between Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas) and Wade is enough to make you wince at how dead the dialog is.
Stealth loses it's way in terms of where it wants to go. Fist Eddie, the AI drone is the villain. Then eventually Eddie realizes that he was wrong and decides to get all warm and fuzzy towards people. In the end Eddie turns out to be the hero. The movie feebly tries to make statements about humans being replaced by computers. The statements are lost amid the explosions and machinegun fire.
With all these problems in Stealth I did give it six stars out of ten because of the special effects. The special effects are done extremely well. Stealth could have been so much more with all the money they had to make the movie, why couldn't they get Quentin Tarantino to do the dialog? Of course he would have wanted some of the pilots to be gay but at least the dialog wouldn't be so corny.
There is an old adage among pilots, "Fighter pilots make puke. Bomber pilots make history." When it comes to movies about war, directors like Cohen make puke and directors like Kubrick(Full Metal Jacket and Dr. Strangelove) and Oliver Stone (Salvador, Platoon and Heaven and Earth) make history.
Rayvyn
Well the movie's marketing isn't true to the actual move. First of all, the posters for Stealth show Jamie Foxx in the middle with the other pilots on the sides. They portray Foxx's character, Lt. Henry Purcell as the leader. As it turns out, Purcell is nothing more than comic relief with his wise cracks and his womanizing. I think they show more than half of Jamie Foxx's dialog in the trailers. Well you can call it dialog but I wouldn't. The dialog isn't much better than what you'd find in a 1950s comic book, but more on that later. To add insult to injury, Purcell is killed off half way through the film. The way he's killed is very stupid and shows that the writer, director and producer of this movie think we're dumb. In the opening scenes were told that 400 pilots applied for the program and only three were selected. This means Purcell really has to be one Sierra Hotel naval aviator to be selected. However, Purcell dies by flying right into the side of a mountain while trying to shoot down "Eddie", the AI pilot that went a little funny in the head. During the scene Purcell flies dangerously close to the sides of a canyon. Missing them by what seems like mere inches. However he shots a missile and flies right into the explosion as it hits the mountain. It was a mistake a pilot with those skills shouldn't have made.
This scene is what's wrong with the movie. The dialog and logic are so stupid. In another scene Lt. Kara Wade's (Jessica Biel) plane is damaged and she has to bail out. The plain is traveling a lot faster than mach one. However when she bails out, the plain stays right above her and explodes. The debris falls straight down on the ejected Wade. The plane should have been a mile away by the time it exploded. The debris would have not fallen straight down either. It's an insult to the intelligence of the audience.
The other big problem is the dialog and logic. It's very dumb. At one point Purcell actually has to explain to his pilot buddies what a prime number is. A private moment between Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas) and Wade is enough to make you wince at how dead the dialog is.
Stealth loses it's way in terms of where it wants to go. Fist Eddie, the AI drone is the villain. Then eventually Eddie realizes that he was wrong and decides to get all warm and fuzzy towards people. In the end Eddie turns out to be the hero. The movie feebly tries to make statements about humans being replaced by computers. The statements are lost amid the explosions and machinegun fire.
With all these problems in Stealth I did give it six stars out of ten because of the special effects. The special effects are done extremely well. Stealth could have been so much more with all the money they had to make the movie, why couldn't they get Quentin Tarantino to do the dialog? Of course he would have wanted some of the pilots to be gay but at least the dialog wouldn't be so corny.
There is an old adage among pilots, "Fighter pilots make puke. Bomber pilots make history." When it comes to movies about war, directors like Cohen make puke and directors like Kubrick(Full Metal Jacket and Dr. Strangelove) and Oliver Stone (Salvador, Platoon and Heaven and Earth) make history.
Rayvyn