Alan @ Transbuddha's Movie Review of Stealth (2005)

Um...where's the stealth?
Alan @ Transbuddha - wrote on 12/23/08

Ever wonder what would happen if you took half the script for Iron Eagle 2 and half the script for Short Circuit and removed anything remotely good, or funny, or interesting? I didn’t either, but obviously the makers of this film needed to solve this philosophical dilemma.

Stealth is the worst type of summer movie: a summer action adventure film that breaks all the rules of reality and the world in which it takes place indiscriminately. The movie steals plot, story, scenes, and characters from everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to War Games to Firefox, and yet can’t seem to capture any single moment of believability, fun, or excitement.

Where, oh where, to begin. Let’s start with the title. The jets, which although visually interesting, do not resemble stealth bombers in any way. You might think this is odd. I certainly did, because not only are these jets not stealths, but they aren’t even used in situations where you would use a stealth bomber. So why was it named Stealth? Maybe they realized no one would go see Short Circuit 3: Johnny Gets High.

There are many shots of the jets flying, so many in fact you will get bored of this really, really quickly. No expense has been saved on locations for the other scenes. The inside of the aircraft carrier looks like it was filmed in a warehouse in West Hollywood, and later scenes involve one of the characters running through what appears to be the Hollywood hills. Nice job guys.

As far as acting goes, Richard Roxburgh comes off best here as the Steve Guttenbegish creator, for no other reason than he gets less time on camera than anyone else. Usually in a movie this bad you can take some comfort in the sexual exploitation of the leading female character. No luck here. Aside from a short shore leave scene in a bathing suit, Biel spends most of the movie stuffed in a cockpit and bulky uniform. As for shore leave, if I knew Naval officers got this much time off, and didn’t have to follow any orders they don’t want to, I would have joined up years ago. This movie makes Top Gun look like a naval documentary.