Taylor Hackford’s “Ray,” the 2004 biography chronicling the life of legendary musician Ray Charles, closely follows the genre’s conventions. He wears his sentimentality on his sleeve, the kind that often accompanies biographical portraits of geniuses, and uses embellishments to heighten his dramatic stakes. Despite these genre pitfalls, “Ray” emerges as a moving and spirited drama thanks to the central performance of Jamie Foxx, who exudes charisma. Foxx disappears into the role of the titular boundary-pushing artistbringing man’s eccentricities to life for compelling purposes. The success of “Ray” can also undoubtedly be attributed to Foxx, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in the film. In addition to being nominated in over five categories at the Academy Awards, “Ray” also won the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing (which is clearly deserved).
“Ray” is not the only film to showcasing Foxx’s incredible ability to portray dramatic rolesbut it definitely helped cement his credibility as a performer in combination with “Collateral.” The latter, directed by Michael Mann, was also released in 2004 and features a captivating (not to mention Oscar nominated) performance from Foxx, who stands up to Tom Cruise as the film’s intense and sadistic antagonist. One would have hoped that Foxx would be able to continue his momentum, but alas, his first post-“Ray” film was both a critical and commercial failure that ended up becoming one of the biggest box office flops of the history of cinema.
That maligned project was Rob Cohen’s “Stealth,” a “Top Gun”-style sci-fi action film centered on three fighter pilots tasked with building a robotic stealth plane. So what exactly went wrong with “Stealth” and why did it bomb so hard?
Jamie Fox starrer Stealth sports an uninspired premise
Spoilers for “Stealth” to follow.
The plot of “Stealth” takes place in the near future, but every technological innovation championed by the film’s central characters completely defies logic. Scientific jargon is used quite liberally, but as soon as you really start thinking about the film’s sci-fi concepts, they collapse like a house of cards. The experts pushing for such innovation are fighter pilots Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas), Lt. Kara Wade (Jessica Biel), and Lt. Henry Purcell (Foxx), chosen to be part of a prestigious program of the United States Navy. The program in question developed the F/A-37 Talon, a single-seat fighter-bomber with enhanced and customized features, where the next step is to install an AI called “Extreme Deep Invader” (EDI) to further streamline this invention. .
At first glance, nothing seems wrong with the premise, which seems pretty mundane by dystopian science fiction standards. If anything, the concept of an autonomous AI (similar to that of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning”) “learning” empathy, morality, and discernment from a group of human pilots could easily be transformed into something complex and challenging. However, “Stealth” lets its human characters down by making them superficial in a way that seems at odds with the serious subject matter. Additionally, every mission they accomplish together, including the one where they miraculously fly to Rangoon in record time, Really short time and come up with an illogical bailout plan – pushes the limits of suspension of disbelief. Nothing Gannon, Wade, and Purcell do or say resembles anything that would actually happen in reality, and that feeling persists throughout.
You may be wondering, “Sure, “Stealth” is a little uninspired, but is it fun? Unfortunately, that’s not the case, even in those moments where the characters indulge in some levity on a trip to Thailand to escape all the rule-breaking they’ve been committing. Ultimately, all the expensive marketing spent promoting “Stealth” as the big blockbuster of summer 2005 was in vain. The film lacked both juice and substance to claim such a title.
