Guest Film Review: Stealth

Stealth
Dir. Rob Cohen

Reviewed by Matt Landsman

Stealth, the film of the near future where the US Navy has managed to
engineer a drone plane to join a squadron and become the fourth wingman in
an elite flying group used to take on the hardest of the hardest, defeat the
best of the best, and generally create a whole bunch of cool special
effects. However, a lightening strike to the drone plane causes it to
malfunction and attack military targets, leaving Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas)
to stop the drone before World War 3 officially begins.
I saw quite a few trailers for this film, and many people had told me about
it prior to it's release, and everywhere I looked, I saw Stealth being
billed as "Top Gun 2" - bringing the blockbuster hit of 1986 into the new
millennium. Well, all you Top Gun lovers out there will be left both
entertained, but overall will be slightly disappointed. From the outset to
the ending, there are blindingly obvious parallels with Top Gun that leave
you laughing at just how little imagination the writers must have had at
times, and on the whole, the film just doesn't match up to the hype it was
given. So it's not the best, biggest grossing film of all time, and it
probably won't get more than a cult following, but is that important? The
film is far from unwatchable as director Rob "The Fast and the Furious"
Cohen certainly adds his high speed stunt style to this film, transferring
from cars to planes seemlessly. Then there's the fact that the trailers
released only show the storyline from the first fourty five minutes or an
hour of the film, leaving the storyline developments from then on as a
guessing game until the last fifteen minutes or so, which are as predictable
as any other film filled to the brim with "Americana" feel good factor. Of
course it's easy to forget all that with Jessica Biel onscreen, although she
doesn't look anything like any "Gear" readers will remember her looking
like.
So if you're looking for fast planes, a good number of laughs, and an easy
to watch, value for money film that doesn't require any plot analysis or
thought, then Stealth could very well be for you.

"Goose: It's the bottom of the 9th, the score is tied its time for the big one.
Iceman: You up for this one, Maverick?
Maverick: Just a walk in the park Kazansky."