REVIEWED - STEALTH: Contrary to promises made in the title, this psychedelically moronic action film, arguably the worst studio picture of the year to date, can be both seen and heard. Though why anybody with anything other than porridge between his or her ears would pay for the privilege is quite beyond me.
Telling the story of a stealth fighter with a mind of its own - the producers are thinking HAL from 2001, the audience is thinking KIT from Knight Rider - Rob Cohen's attempt at collective lobotomy manages to combine the stupidest bits of Top Gun with the loudest bits of xXx to form an atrocity with an identity all its own.
Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Josh Lucas and a computer programmed by a man who lives with large-breasted women star as four pilots with attitude. Even the (only briefly) sane computer, whose name is EDI, enjoys listening to screechy heavy metal as he blows up men in turbans.
It seems that the war on terror - conveniently vague, usefully open-ended - has created any number of new dangers at which mid-range stars may point their rocket launchers. Travelling from Tajikistan to Siberia (stopping off briefly in Thailand to allow Ms Biel to frolic in a bikini), Stealth reveals the world to be full of angry, bearded men with Kalashnikovs.
If Cohen had finished Stealth a year earlier, the South Park team would never have had to make Team America: World Police. Though not quite as funny, this deeply weird enterprise features more wooden acting and a far less nuanced take on world politics. When the female lead crash-lands in North Korea - "We have no diplomatic relations with that country," Capt Sam Shepard helpfully explains - one half expects to see Kim Jong Il bounce over the hill. "How rovery to see you, Miss Bier. You are the most brirriant actress in the worrd."
