{"id":2666,"date":"2005-08-03T15:51:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-03T15:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/08\/stealth-a-nice-piece-of-swiss-cheese\/"},"modified":"2005-08-03T15:51:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-03T15:51:00","slug":"stealth-a-nice-piece-of-swiss-cheese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/08\/stealth-a-nice-piece-of-swiss-cheese.html","title":{"rendered":"Stealth — a nice piece of Swiss cheese"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>


So help me, I actually had a blast when I saw Stealth<\/a><\/i> with the wife a couple weeks ago. I wouldn\u2019t say I \u201cliked\u201d it, exactly, but there was something kinda fun about leaving my movie-critic notebook at home and sitting back and basking in the sheer cheesiness of this film. And as I said in my most recent column<\/a>, it can be fun to talk about the issues raised in films like this, even when \u2014 if not because \u2014 the films are so impossible to take seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of it may be that, unlike The Island<\/a><\/i>, which starts pseudo-smart and then gets really dumb, Stealth<\/i> starts really dumb and then gets, uh, quasi-pseudo-smart. I also had fun noting how the artifically-intelligent super-plane follows a character arc that includes bits of Colossus: The Forbin Project<\/a><\/i> (1970), Short Circuit<\/a><\/i> (1986) and the HAL of both 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/a><\/i> (1968) and 2010: The Year We Make Contact<\/a><\/i> (1984; my comments<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And I got the feeling that at least some of the humour in this film was intentional; I especially liked the last scene, the scene where two people are supposed to kiss, except they don\u2019t, exactly. After sitting through the unrelenting tedium and flat romantic dialogue delivery of Fantastic Four<\/a><\/i>, with its cringe-inducing final kiss-me scene, I thought Stealth<\/i> was, comparatively speaking, a breath of fresh air; and I thought the film had found an ingenious way to cover up the fact that its stars had virtually no chemistry.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s been a bit disappointing to see that so few other critics seem to \u201cget\u201d the film on its own stupid level. But now comes National Post<\/i> columnist Scott Feschuk<\/a> to the rescue \u2014 and he says the movie wasn\u2019t stupid enough<\/i>! It\u2019s a hilarious read.<\/p>\n

Although even I wouldn\u2019t go so far as to say, even in jest, that Jessica Biel should have been replaced with Jessica Simpson. As I told a friend of mine last night, when explaining why The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra<\/a><\/i> (2001) didn\u2019t quite work for me, what makes a stupid film truly work is when it doesn\u2019t know<\/i> it\u2019s stupid. And casting someone like Simpson in a mega-budget high-tech action flick like this would have signalled that the producers were all too aware of how stupid their film really is. One of the things I like about Stealth<\/i> in its present form is that you\u2019re not really sure just how<\/i> aware of their own stupidity the filmmakers really were.<\/p>\n

(FWIW, as I also told my friend last night, there is a difference between bland earnestness, which is what Ed Wood films<\/a> have, and earnest blandness, which is what Cadavra<\/i> has \u2014 but that\u2019s neither here nor there where Stealth<\/i> is concerned.)<\/p>\n

Oh, and why \u201cSwiss\u201d cheese? Because it\u2019s so full of holes! I owe this quip to \u201cBBBCanada\u201d in Windsor, Ontario.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Also check out Feschuk\u2019s send-up<\/a> of the Hollywood thinking behind the making and marketing of The Island<\/i>!<\/p>\n

AUG 5 UPDATE: Good gravy, I think Andrew Coffin of World<\/a><\/i> magazine may have latched onto one of the reasons why I kinda \u201clike\u201d this film (if \u201clike\u201d is, in fact, the right word). He writes:<\/p>\n

Do you develop emotional attachments to technology? Have you ever thrown out an old desktop computer and wept? If so, Stealth<\/i> \u2014 a movie that features a climactic scene involving a computer sacrificing its \u201clife\u201d as grandiose, vaguely religious music fills the soundtrack \u2014 may be for you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t recall ever weeping when divesting myself of old machines, but I do know that it felt kind of \u201csafe\u201d when I sold my first CD player to my parents \u2014 and I fondly touch its buttons whenever I visit their place. And I am<\/i> the sort of person who used to take photos of every pair of shoes I was about to throw out, whenever I got a new pair; somehow, it felt right to commemorate them.<\/p>\n

And like I said in my Vancouver Sun<\/i> feature<\/a> on A.I. Artificial Intelligence<\/a><\/i> (2001; my BCCN review<\/a>; my CT review<\/a>), \u201cWhen HAL\u2019s creator bids him a sad farewell in 2010: The Year We Make Contact<\/i> . . . I found the moment genuinely moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ditto the scene in the TV-movie Prototype<\/a><\/i> (1983) where the android played by David Morse sacrifices himself for the sake of his creator, who is played by Christopher Plummer. The line where the android tells his creator not to give him a goodbye hug, because \u201cyou\u2019ll feel the metal,\u201d always used to choke me up.<\/p>\n

Heck, my eyes are moistening just thinking<\/i> about that scene.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So help me, I actually had a blast when I saw Stealth with the wife a couple weeks ago. I wouldn\u2019t say I \u201cliked\u201d it, exactly, but there was something kinda fun about leaving my movie-critic notebook at home and sitting back and basking in the sheer cheesiness of this film. And as I said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nStealth -- a nice piece of Swiss cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So help me, I actually had a blast when I saw Stealth with the wife a couple weeks ago. 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