Susan Granger’s review of “Stealth” (Columbia Tri-Star)
It’s hard to believe that, after winning the Oscar for “Ray,” Jamie Foxx plays a brainless jock in this kind of idiotic, bottom-of-the-barrel, explosive action flick that tackles global terrorism. As Henry Purcell, he’s part of an elite trio of Navy fliers that includes cocky Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas) and sexy Kara Wade (Jessica Biel). They’ve been chosen by their C.O., Captain George Cummings (Sam Shepard), to be part of an anti-terrorism pilot program and dispatched aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in the Philippine Sea. But then they’re joined by a fourth jet aircraft, an ultra-secret unmanned vehicle called EDI (Extreme Deep Invader) that’s controlled by an advanced artificial intelligence. “Meet your new wingman,” says Capt. Cummings. But when the EDI (pronounced “Eddie”), dubbed “Tin Man” by its cohorts, is struck by lightning after completing its first mission, the eavesdropping drone goes berserk, disobeying orders and following its prime directive – “to survive” – perhaps at the expense of the people of Tajikistan. “Leave me alone,” the rogue robot intones, risking a worldwide nuclear Armageddon. W.D. Richter’s predictable script takes off on the enigmatic computer HAL that went off-line in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” so director Rob Cohen (“The Fast and the Furious”) spends his mega-$130-million budget on airborne special effects, primarily utilizing a technological advance called Tergen (terrain generator), developed by Digital Domain. As Talon Top Guns, the actors – all three of them – are expendable in the adrenaline rush but you’d think that a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright like Shepard would have better judgment. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Stealth” is a noisy, frenetic 3. It’s a bomb.
