Stealth

In the preview for Stealth there is a glimpse for about a second of Jessica Biel in a robin's egg blue bikini, and yes, fellas, you do get to see more. I'm guessing about 20 or 30 seconds altogether, but that's far better than the momentary tease in the preview. Ms. Biel doesn't have the classic Playboy centerfold figure; she's not nearly hippy enough for the hourglass that would require. However, she does have the figure of a beautiful woman with an athletic body and it's a sight to behold.

Now that the most important part of this review is over, let's get on to the movie.

Okay, I've noticed that some critics have panned Stealth. This is silly. Movies like this are entertainment not art. This is not to say there's no art in the movie. Some of the computer graphics are astonishing. Rob Cohen knows how to do explosions. And then there's Jessica Biel in a bikini.

This and the heat outside are the reason we go to air conditioned theaters in the summer. I was cool and the movie not only didn't put me to sleep, it kept me awake for two hours.

This isn't to say the plot stands up to close scrutiny or that the dialog doesn't get dumb from time to time. But noticing things like that just makes movies like this more fun and fun is what it's all about.

Here's the basic plot: Three hot shot Navy pilots have been training in a top secret super-cruise fighter/bomber. "Super-cruise" means that the cruising speed for the aircraft is supersonic even before it kicks in afterburners. These are aircraft (actually in design if not production) which can hit mach 4. That is fast.

Just after their first mission, they are introduced to a new aircraft that will be flying with them. This new craft is a "UCAV" designed to supersede manned combat aircraft by being more maneuverable (pulling tighter turns and more G's than a human can endure) and by not risking the lives of pilots.

This UCAV is controlled by an onboard AI (artificial intelligence) computer. The reason it's flying with them is to learn combat techniques and decision making by observing and participating in missions.

Unfortunately, the team leader (Josh Lucas) is not a model of obedience to authority and between this and being hit by lightning, this aircraft goes nutso, picking a target in Russia that could cause a dangerous international incident. The team is sent in pursuit.

That's about all the plot you need for purposes of this review.

The one thing that really bothers me about this movie is something I see time and time again in action and horror movies. Let me put it to you this way: The three members of the team include a white man and woman (Josh Lucas and the aforementioned Jessica Biel, whose ethnic ancestry is actually pretty complex, but she's white enough for us here) plus Jamie Fox. One of them gets killed in the course of the movie. Can you guess which one of the three that might be? (Hint: "You lose, buckwheat!") It's reached the point in action and horror movies that as soon as I see a black man in a group of characters I know he's probably doomed.

There are times here when the aircraft are obviously real (though mock-ups, I'm sure, only on the ground) and the transitions from these to what have to be CG aircraft are absolutely seamless. It seems there is almost nothing you can't do in CG anymore.

Like I said earlier, the plot has its absurdities, which I won't detail here, and the dialog is riddled with clichés and cheap philosophizing, which isn't to say it doesn't raise some of the fundamental issues of mechanizing and dehumanizing war, which is something we really need to be thinking about. And if the movie has you thinking about things you never thought about before, there's nothing wrong with that.