A beautiful mindfuck (6/10/06)
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Stealth. [Rob Cohen, 2005. Written by W.D. Richter.]
The triumphant march of naval aviators Jessica “Pardon my C cup” Biel, Josh “Don’t think, drink” Lucas, and Jamie “Please, no pictures” Foxx toward ultimate victory in the Global War On Terror — which, conveniently, turns out mainly to involve hotdogging around in 21st-century fighter jets faster than the speed of sound dropping precision ordnance on Bent Ragheads wherever they may be found [the targeting coordinates of Muslim irrationalism now having been precisely identified, lit up on glowing blue computer screens, zeroed in on the crosshairs of all those omnipresent hovering spy satellites] — is interrupted when their crusty old [but disturbingly ambitious] commander Sam “I need the paycheck” Shepard introduces them to their new wingman, a robot aircraft with a ten terahertz quantum computer for a brain whose meteoric speed, instantaneous reflexes, pinpoint precision, turnonadime maneuverability, imperviousness to g forces, and hollow metallic voice identify him as their logical successor in the relentless evolution of speed, firepower, and mindless machismo. Complications must naturally ensue, and it will come as no surprise that a stray lightning bolt grazes the robot’s braincase and toasts its sense of selfrestraint, turning it into a mad uncontrollable force for evil who refuses to open the pod bay doors, is chased through matte paintings of the woods by mobs of angry villagers, takes refuge in the hut of a kindly old blind woodcutter who plays the violin, and retains the services of a prominent law firm to demand that the renegade hacker who wrote its source code build it a mate. Our heroes must then of course ride to the rescue of civilization, chasing the mad roboplane all over Asia, doing even more barrel rolls on the deck dodging North Korean ackack shooting the lights out of Russian MIGs bailing out in flames running with the Devil busting out of the joint, etc., etc. — All of which beats hell out of getting your ass blown out of a Humvee on patrol in downtown Baghdad; and, guess what, photographs better too.
Superficially, then, the scenario seems to suggest that the real danger lies not without but within, that our own mistakes are our worst enemies, that trying to solve every problem by trying to come up with some kind of hightech fix is bound to backfire, and that we must conquer the roots of terror in ourselves before we fly off to shoot up the world; that the ultimate danger, as Designated Philosopher Lucas puts it, is that war will be turned into some kind of video game.
But all this, obviously, sails out the window at the first glimpse of Jessica Biel in a flight suit, and we come away instead secure in the knowledge that, no matter who exactly the nameless faceless enemy may be, and no matter why he chose to renounce good and tread the path of unmitigated evil, his existence, plainly, is more than adequate excuse for a vastly amplified defense budget, more and shinier new gadgets, and bigger and better tax cuts for major Republican campaign contributors.
(And one should note, incidentally, that the scene around which the trailer was constructed — one in which Ms. Biel splashes beneath a picturesque waterfall in a blushing baby blue bikini — is, indeed, the high point of the film; and like adolescent sex lasts about thirty seconds.)
Sample dialogue: “There’s no blood in those quantum veins”; “War’s terrible, it’s meant to be terrible”; “We have things those computers can never have, like instincts, and feelings, and moral judgment...I just don’t think that in war the actions should ever be divorced from the consequences”; “He downloads songs from the Web” — “Oh yeah? how many?” — “All of them”; "My mandate is to survive"; “If it [the fictitious war-game scenario — you remember: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, hacking at 300 baud, let’s play Global Thermonuclear War] is not real, why did they implant it in my brain?”; “Just tell me you love me, you pussy.”
Which might continue, but, shit, I think I’m going hypersonic.
____________L’alpe d’wheeze (8/10/05)
