Stealth (film)

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Stealth

Promotional poster for Stealth
Directed by Rob Cohen
Produced by Arnold Messer
Written by W. D. Richter
Starring Josh Lucas
Jessica Biel
Jamie Foxx
Music by Brian Transeau
Distributed by Sony Pictures
Release date(s) July 29, 2005
Running time 121 mins
Language English
Budget $135,000,000
IMDb profile

Stealth is a 2005 action/adventure thriller starring Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx. The movie is directed by Rob Cohen. Stealth was a colossal box office bomb that lost $99.6 million, one of the biggest box office losses of all time. [1]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie opens up with a dolly shot moving away in the clouds, shortly thereafter we see three jet fighters roll into the scene. The radio chatter starts and things kick up a notch as the pilots demo their skills as aviators while they snake through canyons at high speed avoiding SAMs and hit the deck for some strafing runs and lob a few air to ground bombs, meanwhile avoiding everything thrown at them.

The three pilots -- Henry Purcell (Jamie Foxx), Kara Wade (Jessica Biel), and Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas) -- land their aircraft and go and meet their CO, who praises their hot-shot skills and tells them they've got their first assignment on a carrier tommorrow morning where they'll be joined by a "4th" wingman. Purcell cracks jokes about how well the three of them have survived so far, how 3 is such a lucky number "trinity", etc.

That night, after hitting the bar and a few sexist innuendoes here and there about bleached hair and visiting the bathroom, the pilots retire after partying it up.

The next morning, the pilots smoothly (of course) land their jets on the deck of the real-life USS Abraham Lincoln in sequence. After being debriefed about the mysterious 4th wingman, everyone watches the deck as EDI short for "Extreme Deep Invader" which is an UCAV (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle) lands. EDI pulls off this Harrier jump-jet landing reinforcing that EDI has his own "moves". After the CO tells the trio that EDI isn't a male or female, but a computer, we start to see how a mix between apprehension and curiosity falls upon them, but before they're allowed to "play" with EDI, they have to do their "homework". After this, everyone returns to their bunks and take "study-breaks" with each other.

The next day they all meet EDI - EDI has a brain that detaches from the cockpit. A grad-student-looking-techie plugs him into a laptop and starts talking about how amazing EDI is and how his neuro-artificial-intelligence "brain" can do anything. After a little of headbutting between the EDI program coordinator -- Captain George Cummings (Sam Shepard), a shifty CIA agent from the military "skunk works" eager to test his new toy -- and Captain Dick Marshfield (Joe Morton) who isn't eager to have him there, the trio receive orders to go rip it up with their new wingman.

The three catapault from the deck of the Lincoln, but EDI hasn't joined formation. As they're trying to locate it, EDI pulls off an inverted roll above their aircraft and falls into position off Gannon's wingtip. At this point the confidence is the group is starting to wane at EDI's killer moves, but it's time for action when the group receives an order from Capt. Cummings tell them their test-flight has been interrupted and they have new orders -- go to downtown Rangoon in Mynamar and drop a "building-buster" bomb on some "terrorists".

When they reach the target, Lt. Wade does some calculations and suggest the collateral damage would be excessive and many civilian deaths would be the result - unless one of the pilots can do a gnarly G-ripping manuever and drop the bomb right on top of the building. Cummings back on the ship does some calculations and figures the G-Load would be too much for a human and orders the 3 human pilots to "stand down" and let EDI drop the bomb because he can pull a higher G-Load. Lt. Gannon would rather try it himself. He disobeys the order and goes vertical, then basically shoots straight down until he's almost over the building (the intent to increase the velocity of his bomb) and lets it rip. He scores a instant, lethal hit, and like a videogame, his flight computer echoes "Score 100 out of 100."

After they all return to the carrier and manage to land on the deck in the middle of storm, EDI gets zapped by lightning, but after a somewhat uncoordinated landing, EDI makes it. Since they did such an excellent job, even though EDI didn't get to show his stuff, the Captain dismisses the crew and tells them they get a break in Thailand. Cummings wants them off so he can iron out any bugs in EDI to get him ready to do some serious damage, but he doesn't want them around.

While in Thailand, Lt. Purcell makes time with a Thai woman, and Gannon and Wade are still pining for each other.

When they get back to the ship, they're tasked with another mission - there are some terrorists who are expecting a shipment of nukes in Tajikistan. They all shoot off the carrier and when they're in the air, EDI starts behaving weird, refusing to follow proper orders from the flight leader As they approach their target in the mountains of some "Axis of Evil" nation, Wade again does her casualty assessment and predicts the casualties from dropping their Fuel Air Explosives on the nukes would be too high because the radioactive fallout would engulf a village of farmers. "They're only farmers," says Wade. The three reach a consensus to abort, except for EDI. Gannon is yelling at him not to disobey orders, but EDI rolls right in and lets his FAE bomb rip, hosing the terrorists and engulfing innocent villagers in a cloud of radioactive waste.

When they return to the ship, Gannon confronts Cummings and tells him that EDI is out of control and that he doesn't want to fly with him anymore, to which Cummings threatens him and tells him if he doesn't fly with EDI, "you'll be flying something with a propeller."

In the meantime, Gannon secretly visits EDI's tech-support-dude, who has put EDI into diagnostics and seeing weird patterns. Gannon asks what is happening, to which the techie explains EDI is basically "evolving" where he shouldn't be, and when Gannon asks him to rate his confidence in EDI, the technician is ominously silent.

After all this hoopla, on their next "sortie" with EDI, the aircraft disappears from the formation after disobeying orders from Gannon, and nobody can get EDI back. He's evolved and becomes smart enough to "firewall" his computer from mission control so not even Cummings can control him. Not only this, but he's also downloaded the latest selection of MP3 files from the Internet, and plays a different song each time he goes after a target.

After Cummings makes some calls to some politician who is funding his secret program in Washington, and threatens to bring him down if he doesn't "fix" the plane, we find out EDI is on a secret mission (called, Caviar Sweep) to drop a nuclear bomb on some Russian base. The decision now is to send Purcell to chase EDI down and destroy him before he reaches Russian airspace.

Unfortunately EDI isn't going to make it easy. After a failed attempt at Purcell trying to reason with it during an elaborated chase sequence between the two aircraft, EDI tells the lieutenant that he has virtually no chance at destroying it, says "GOODBYE" and pulls a turn which causes Purcell to crash into a mountain. Wade and Gannon turn to head home until Wade's aircraft is hit by some debris from the crash of Purcell. Unfortunately her aircraft can't sustain itself, and she turns back home telling Gannon, "Good hunting." He can't bring himself to tell her he loves her, and now he's the only one in pursuit of EDI.

Mission Control tries to help by calling Orbit (the creator of EDI) who can't really do anything saying EDI has evolved too much, so they try to shut off all refueling options for EDI so they can force it out of fuel, but EDI's too smart. After it can't get authorized access to the refuelling blimp, it just shoots the cap off and fills up anyways.

As Wade starts heading home, her aircraft has more problems until it's virtually useless and she has no choice but to bail out. Sure enough, it's over North Korea. Mission control asks Cummings to dispatch a Search and Rescue team for her and he says he can't because: "We don't have diplomatic relations with those folks." When she hits the ground in a rain of fiery debris from her aircraft which has self-destruct, she is slightly injured and runs for cover behind some rocks, where unfortunately a little girl from the nearby village spots her and screams. Soon enough, the entire North Korean army is on the hunt for her, and she spends her time evading them while getting shot by a sniper and trying to make her way to the DMZ and eventually South Korea.

In the next sequence Gannon reaches the refueling blimp (where EDI was earlier filling up), and he starts to fill up as well. In the meantime, all that leaking fuel caused a ring of fuel and sure enough EDI fires into it trying to kill Gannon in a massive ring of fire. Gannon survives, and soon after, both EDI and him end up in Russian airspace and a dogfight ensues between the Russian fighter jets who have been sent up to intercept them. EDI collaborates with Gannon, only because it will allow it to meet its objective of reaching the Russian base in one piece. EDI tells Gannon that the odds of surviving fighting alone are 2%.

After they destroy the Russian aircraft, Gannon warns EDI that he can't allow him to proceed, and that he'll shoot it down. EDI doesn't care, but this time there's a problem -- EDI has a bit of shrapnel hit his wing, causing a fuel leak. After reasoning with EDI and convincing him that the fuel leak will cause him to be destroyed, EDI agrees to abandon the mission to nuke the Russian base. Gannon then radios back to mission control to ask about Wade, and Cummings lies to him and tells him she's on approach back to the carrier. But now EDI is helping Gannon, and he scans the database on the Lincoln and finds out there is no record of her jet landing, so both EDI and Gannon realize Cummings is lying.

Gannon decides to go to rescue Wade in North Korea, and EDI agrees to be his wingman. Since they're both out of fuel, they receive orders from Cummings at mission control they can land at a secret base in Alaska to fill up, that's "not on the map." EDI and Gannon make it there, however Gannon's fighter is totalled in the crash landing, but he's alive and welcomed on the base.

In the meantime, Cummings has sent orders to this secret base to have Gannon killed because he'll be a witness that Cummings allowed a defective aircraft go into battle which resulted in the deaths of innocents and the death of a pilot, all of which Cummings is trying to cover up. He also orders that EDI's "brain" be erased so it leaves no tracks of what has happened.

A doctor is sent in to look at Gannon, and tries to give him a sedative against his will. The outcome here is the doctor gets stabbed instead, and Gannon breaks out and finds himself in a hangar where a firefight ensues between him the CIA operatives and he prevents EDI's brain from being erased, by Dr. Orbit.

In the meantime, Capt. Dick Marshfield goes to arrest Cummings. Gannon has gotten on the radio and briefed him, but before he can do this, Cummings shoots himself.

Gannon gets into EDI and EDI takes him into North Korea, where on the ground, Wade has been battling the North Korean agents, has been shot in the arm, and has finally made it to the DMZ between the North & South. Just as she's getting pummelled with heavy machine gun fire by the North Korean's, Gannon lands in EDI, and rushes out to rescue her. They both try to get to the South side of the DMZ but are being chased by a North Korean helicopter, and when it finally looks like they're gonna be strafed before they reach freedom, EDI takes off and rams himself into the North Korean helicopter, but just before he does it he says "GOODBYE."

At the end of this Wade and Gannon reunite. On the Lincoln, a service is held in Purcell's honor. After the service, Wade and Gannon have their own private time, and again he's at a loss for words and comes up with some lame line. She answers: "Why don't you just tell me you love me, you pussy!"

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Featured Technologies

F/A-37 Talon viewed from above.
Enlarge
F/A-37 Talon viewed from above.

Stealth featured many new, future, or theoretical technologies at the time of release. These include:

[edit] Litigation

In March 2005, Leo Stoller, who claims to own trademark rights to the word "stealth", served Columbia Pictures with a "cease and desist" letter threatening litigation if they did not rename the movie to something "noninfringing". Columbia responded with a lawsuit seeking a declaration from the court that their movie does not infringe on the trademark (which is not registered in any category remotely similar to motion pictures). [2] Leo Stoller's blog

[edit] Soundtrack Listing

[edit] Quotes

  • "Goodbye, Henry." - EDI.
  • "Tin Man will prosecute." - EDI
  • "Where are you...I know you're out there." - Ben
  • "I will blast your aeroelastic ass right out of the sky!" - Henry
  • "Starboard canard frozen." - Talon Computer

[edit] Trivia

  • Though they do possess some additional features (such as 'switchblade' wings that swing forward to join the canards) the Talons, though more angular, bear a striking resemblance to the Northrop Switchblade and the YF-19 prototype variable fighter from the Japanese animated OAV series Macross Plus released in 1994-1995 and the X-02 Wyvern from the Ace Combat video game series for the PS2. Further, the advanced UCAV EDI is in concept reminiscent of the unmanned Ghost Fighter (the X-9 Ghost) from that series, and has a number of features (aeroelastic wings) in common with the other fighter prototype, the YF-21. Also the scene in which the pilots are going over the data files on EDI is quite similar to one in which Isamu Dyson is examining the specs on the YF-21, and EDI's single red eye design and attempt to fight its creators are reminiscent of Sharon Apple, the main antagonist in the series. If there was any inspiration taken from this ten year old anime title, it has neither been mentioned in credits or bonus material on the Stealth DVD.
  • The more recent anime OAV Sentou Yousei Yukikaze has numerous similarities worth noting, as its signature craft the FFR-31MR/D Super Sylph is visually comparable to the Talon, as well as a focus on the working relationship between the principal pilot and an AI plane, in this case the protagonist Rei Fukai and the flight computer Yukikaze.
  • As a marketing gimmick to try to gain back losses through home video sales, the UMD version of the film for the PSP includes 3 stages of the video game Wipeout Pure with a Talon jet playable in the game.
  • Wentworth Miller is the voice of EDI.
  • The sections of the film were supposed to be shot on board the US Navy Fleet Carrier USS Abraham Lincoln but much of the labeling is for the USS Carl Vinson which has a Naval Construction Code of CVN-70 (the Lincoln's is CVN-72). During their stay on board the ship the stars of the film signed autographs for the crew.
  • The main characters are very fond of prime numbers, however the character played by Jamie Foxx inaccurately states one to be a prime.
  • The AI code shown on screen is TeX code.
  • Photos of the plane mock ups on the carrier were circulated around the internet, claiming to be photos of a real, top-secret experimental fighter.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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