Stealth

The loud music and high octane action from the start of the film make no apologies that this is how a summer popcorn action movie should begin. Rob Cohen, famed for his previous directorial action flicks The Fast and the Furious, and xXx, again weaves his magic in thrusting (pardon the pun) relatively unknowns into carrying the burden of delivering an adrenaline pumping film for the masses.

The trailer sorts of explains the storyline, though I feel that it did not do the film any justice by barely scratching the surface and presenting a very ordinary looking action film - An AI powered jet plane joins 3 pilots in their mission, gets zapped by lightning, which fried its circuitry, and goes rouge. Well, that happens in the first half of the movie, in only first gear. The film may seem like Top Gun meets Behind Enemy Lines meets Iron Eagle, but its futuristic setting makes the fictitious Talon Navy fighter jet a worthy screen successor to the F-14 Tomcat and the F-16 Falcon.

EDI (pronounced Eddie) is the newest addition to a top secret military fighter plane project. EDI is self-learning and self-aware, and downloads every song available on the Internet for its listening pleasure. But in an observational training mission, picks up bad habits, courtesy of none other than Josh Lucas' human, cocky ace pilot. Discussions are aplenty at the start, where characters ponder over the nature of having artificial intelligence wage wars on our behalf - things like being impartial, morality, sense of judgement, self-preservation etc. But you and I know that these themes take a backseat once the action takes over.

Which brings me to exclaim, the action is WOW. Being a fan of films featuring fighter jets, it is definitely a giant leap from the Top Gun days (which is actually a long time back). Here, we have the handsome looking experimental Talon jet, tight and intense dogfights (which may be too fast for some), innovative aerial cinematography (though digitally created), which probably inherited techniques from Fast and Furious - here the camera weaves around jets, zooming into the cockpit, the Heads Up Display, funnelling through the electronics before leaving the scene via what I call the "missile view".

Set pieces did not disappoint, like the mission in Rangoon, Myanmmar, and other locales which I will not reveal to keep the suspense. While standard scenes in an aerial movie will probably include the Ejection seat (note: this ain't a spoiler, it's in the trailer!), this one probably kept me at the edge of my seat with its gripping and harrowing blow by blow account of the thought process as the pilot plummets towards earth.

Digital Domain proved to be a formidable competitor to Industrial Light and Magic for the special effects put into this film. The only cheese I cringed at were the digitized world maps, but other than that, everything else was quite well done.

The cast had their work cut out for them, especially Josh Lucas. With Cohen's alumni of leading men like Vin Diesel making it big, you might expect Lucas to buckle under pressure, but he did a commendable job, actually giving Cruise a run for his money in the arrogance department, if we're to compare both pilots from different films. Jessical Biel is no stranger to action movies, and this film actually reinforced the notion that she could be a potential female action star in the making. My only disappointment was the treatment of Jamie Foxx. Watch and you'll understand why.

While the film tries too hard to layer itself with deeper sub plots like dirty politics and shady government characters, and ended up a tad predictable, for its action alone, it should appeal to Cohen and flight fans who are waiting for end-to-end action. Non-fans however, will probably lay the smackdown on this actioner.