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Stealth: The Worst 140 Million Spent in the History of the World
8/3/05
by Clay

Stealth is the worst movie that has ever been made. Or at the very least, the worst movie ever made that cost more than 100 million dollars. These do not end the superlatives associated with this movie, it is also the worst movie ever for an oscar winner for best actor to appear in immediately after having won the award. In his defense I feel like Jamie Foxx knew this movie was bad. Perhaps this was why his character died about an hour into the movie by crashing his plane into the side of a mountain. (I'm not apologizing for "ruining" this movie because I consider it to be so far beyond ruining there is no need to apologize. In fact this entire review is the equivalent of knocking down the standing mailbox for a house already destroyed by a hurricane. But if you are somehow planning on seeing the movie Stealth please stop reading this column now and never speak to me again.)

Ok, let's start at the beginning. Here is the entire plot of Stealth in several really long sentences: A plane has artificial intelligence and can be flown without a pilot which threatens the three best pilots in the Navy who are joined in a foursome with the artificial pilot when they have to destroy a building filled with terrorists. But the plane has issues and slowly begins to rebel against the other three pilots and this plot point terminates when the plane carries on an unauthorized mission to destroy a village and becomes bad, then the plane has a change of heart after one of the pilots dies and becomes good, then one of the pilots disappears in North Korea after her plane runs out of fuel, then the pilotless plane becomes piloted and flies to North Korea where the plane heroically dies by throwing itself into a helicopter. Along the way the two pilots who don't die fall in love.

Now I don't know about you, but if someone pitched this idea to me, I would shoot them. Or at least beat them with a rattan cane. But in Hollywood if you came up with this idea they would give you 140 million dollars to make the worst movie of all time. I'm firmly convinced most people I know could have made a better movie with a camcorder for fifty bucks.

Before I go any further I feel like I should explain why I even went to see Stealth. The answer is very simple: Lara had seen The Island already. Together we had also already seen Fantastic Four (I never thought I would ever type this sentence, but compared to Stealth the Fantastic Four is like Citizen Kane). Basically, it came down to Stealth or Rebound. Time for another sentence I never thought I would write, I wish I had watched Rebound instead. After standing in line for a half-hour to buy popcorn, we opted for the large because, and this is 100% true, the small and medium popcorns are the same size. When Lara inquired about the difference the cashier said, "Medium cheaper." Which did nothing to disprove that the bags were the exact same size but did prove that speaking without verbs is faster. Suitabley popcorn accoutred, we sat down to watch the movie.

So let's roll down the plot with numeric accompaniment because I'm tired of paragraphs.

1. Green apples make an appearance. This might have been the worst symbolism in the history of movies. Ok, we get it, the proverbial apple. (Actually I'm willing to bet that approximately .0001 % of the Stealth viewing audience got this). Very interesting primarily because I'm surprised whoever wrote this script had ever read anything before.

2. We meet the plane. It's name is EDI which is an ACRONYM. The plane is located on a naval aircraft carrier and is worked on by a computer geek who somehow lives on the aircraft carrier. This computer geek has a scruffy beard and wears t-shirts and shorts throughout the movie. Is this even possible? I know for a fact that when President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier to announce that the war in Iraq was over there were no computer geeks standing around.

3. We meet all three pilots, Jessica Biel who is hot, Josh Lucas who looks like a cross between the plumber in Desperate Housewives and Mathew McConnahey. and Jamie Foxx who should shoot his agent.

4. The pilots go out drinking and Lucas picks up a chick who announces to the group, "I've gotta pee." Apparently this is very funny. Biel offers up her first sultry graze in the direction of Lucas. Pulses quicken throughout the theater.

5. The pilots meet EDI and talk about how they don't need a new partner. For some reason despite having been designed to fly without a pilot EDI has a cockpit with a seat and all the piloting controls. The three pilots are given binders that are designed to show how talented EDI is. Somehow the director has managed to make artificial intelligence a prima donna.

6. All three pilots review their binders in their quarters. Lucas comes to visit Biel who has already decorated her entire quarters with cutout magazine pictures despite arriving that same day. Her drying underwear is also hanging from a string across the middle of the quarters. Leaving the viewer to make one of two determinations, either her underwear gets dirty really fast or she only has one pair. Awkward banter ensues. Best line scored to Beil, "Watch out for my C-cup," she says as Lucas attempts to leave her quarters without running into her bra or panties.

7. Jamie Foxx fulfills every sterotype for a black person in ten seconds. While not-studying, he dances and raps to music with his shirt off while flexing in front of a mirror and wearing sunglasses. Well done Jamie, you are fortunate the Oscar vote cannot be rescinded. Seriously, if I were Leonardo DiCaprio, instead of promoting myself for Aviator, I would have just sent every Academy voter a tape of Stealth. Foxx would have sunk like a rocket. (Which reminds me how did this cliche even start: Do rockets actually sink?)

8. While fulfilling every stereotype of black people in ten seconds, Foxx poses in front of the mirror to reveal his gnarled visage. Surprisingly the mirror does not shatter. Has there ever been an uglier man who pulled himself off as an attractive man? This is the female equivalent of Camryn Manheim posing for Maxim and people being excited about it. Rarely do I judge men, but Jamie Foxx is an ugly man. More power to him, however, for having the gall to consider himself attractive and having people actually buy it.

Jaime Foxx	Camryn Manheim

9. THERE IS A MISSION OF DEEP IMPORTANCE. EDI blows up terrorists and then there is a confusing bit where EDI and Lucas's plane are struck by lightening. I was confused because I thought EDI shot a lightening bolt at Lucas's plane. Lara told me I was an idiot though, and both planes seemed to be somehow affected so it does appear they were both struck by lightning. This bothered me because it meant there was an integral plot moment that I couldn't understand. For a moment I thought maybe I was the idiot and not whoever greenlighted, starred in, wrote, directed, and produced this movie.

10. Everyone returns from blowing up the terrorists and the entire group is given r and r in Thailand. Evidently they were very tired from being on the boat for approximately one day. Ominously, t-shirt and shorts wearing computer geek informs us that EDI is capable of downloading every song on earth. Lucas utters the worst joke ever involving file sharing.

11. The movie makes as drastic of a turn as I have ever seen and we follow the three pilots, minus EDI to Thailand. Yes, Thailand. Jamie Foxx meets an asian girl who doesn't have a single line and romance evolves. But most of the focus is given to Biel and Lucas's trip to a waterfall in Thailand. For some reason, Lucas has a camera and is taking pictures of Biel in a bikini even though just the two of them are there and they are not dating. This qualifies as perhaps the most awkward waterfall encounter that does not involve hardcore pornographic sex ever filmed.

12. At this point, I should probably offer a bit of balance and say what I liked about this movie. There were exactly two things, Jessica Biel's ass and the maps. This means that of the 140 million spent on this movie, approximately 5k given to Jessica Biel's trainer who made her ass spectacular and whatever they had to pay for Rand McNally on the maps, say 10k, was money well spent. This also raises an intriguing possibility, what if the entire movie had just been a map of Jessica Biel's ass? At the very least, that would have been twice as good as the movie they made.

13. Everyone returns from Thailand and EDI refuses to follow orders and bombs an entire village. Mayhem ensues and EDI refuses to return to base. The other three pilots begin to chase EDI.

14. Oh, and EDI has a voice that sounds something like a computer. We don't ever learn how EDI can speak or where in the world his voice comes from. At this point in the movie Lara leans over to me and says, "It's like they combined the worst elements of Knight Rider and Top Gun."

15. Jamie Foxx dies by flying his plane into a mountain. Dies. The theater was shocked. And there was still an hour to go. Jessica Biel's ass has got a lot of work to do.

16. EDI begins playing his favorite song. I have no idea what song this is, but I'm tone deaf so I don't feel comfortable quibbling with the music choice of artificial intelligence. Lara is not tone deaf. She turns to me and says, "Every song ever, and EDI chooses this?"

17. Somehow Jessica Biel's plane runs out of fuel and she crashes in North Korea. I'm still not sure how this happened although the maps made it very clear that she landed in North Korea. After a harrowing fall, she lands in a village straight from the year A.D. 42 and immediately scares a young child. This of course leads to the arrival of a cadre of terrifying asian men including one man with a flattop and a big gun who proceeds to shoot her. Fortunately for both Biel and the movie he misses the ass and hits her elbow.

18. EDI attempts to burn Lucas by lighting a ring of fire in the sky. Lucas avoids death and continues to chase EDI who has been hit by a piece of flying debris and now is on fire. Somehow EDI has become convinced that he needs to blow up something in Russia and Lucas is insistent that he must not. For some inexplicable reason EDI suddenly agrees that he should not attack Russia.

19. EDI is now a good guy. As a reward, Lucas fires a missle into the water which explodes in a huge geyser of water and burns out the fire on EDI. Lucas says something about EDI trusting him and he'll trust EDI.

20. EDI and Lucas land in Alaska and a doctor tries to put a vial of something into Lucas, but Lucas is too smart for that and instead the doctor sticks himself and dies. Evidently this is an evil place full of evil people. I'm still not sure even after quite a bit of thought who the people were at the base and why they knew the planes were going to land there.

21. Lucas busts he and EDI out of the Alaskan base and they reject direct orders not to go after Biel in North Korea. No one points out the irony of an unmanned plane having a place for a pilot to sit or that the pilot ends up sitting there. This is very convenient. Almost like they planned all along...nah. I turn to Lara and say, "But which one is flying?" a bit too loud. Someone shushes us.

22. Biel is running around in what is supposed to be the demilitarized zone though I never could quite figure out which way she was trying to go. She is Rambo with a great ass. Luckily EDI arrives despite having no idea where she is in North Korea (despite having shown how big the country of North Korea is the final sequence treats the entire country as the equivalent of about four city blocks) and blows up everyone except...

23, The asian man with the flattop. He survives and Lucas has to shoot him with his gun after he runs out of the cockpit. Then another helicopter arrives and just as it is about to waste Biel and Lucas, EDI takes off and hurls himself into the helicopter. An explosion ensues. EDI has become the artificial intelligence airplane equivalent of Sydney Carton.

24. In a stare of cinematic precision, Lucas bears witness to the death of EDI just as he crosses out of North Korea and into South Korea. I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye. EDI is Lassie and Jesus all rolled into one.

25. Jamie Foxx's picture returns. We are treated to a huge picture of his ugly visage as they hold a memorial service for him on the deck of the aircraft carrier. Biel and Lucas have approximately six stitches between them and are misty-eyed. Someone behind us is actually crying. The only suspect I can think of is Jamie Foxx himself.

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