Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Sometimes it's more fun to watch a bad movie than a good one. This is definitely one of those times.

Stealth is a bigger enigma than the face of the Madonna on a grilled-cheese sandwich. It's a third-rate direct-to-video action adventure that gives third billing to the only cast member who could invite the rest of the production over to look at his Oscar.

Then again, we're knocking on August, one of the two great bad-movie graveyards of the year. If you have a dirty diaper to release, it's either now or January.

Otherwise, it's survival of the fittest, not survival of the sh!##iest!

Ben, Kara and Henry (Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel and Oscar-winner, Jamie Foxx) are three navy pilots who prance about as if they know they're in the bastard child of Top Gun and All The Right Stuff. As the insert tells us, in big, bold, letters - at the beginning of the film - the government has come up with a super-secret high-tech project. Of the four hundred pilots who applied, only three were accepted.

What amazes me is the disconnect between "super-secret high-tech project" and "four hundred pilots applied." I guess we're beyond the days when nuclear secrets could be jacked by Chinese engineers, only to be found behind copiers. It's nice to know that patriotism - and TV-level writing - puts behind us the day when a marine guard allowed Russkies to wiretap the American embassy in exchange for sex with one of those skinny Russian babes with fragile-sounding names.

Assigned to the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln (minus the "mission accomplished" sign) "somewhere in the Indian Ocean" - probably within eyeshot of the carrier from Top Gun - they discover that Uncle Sam's got a brand-new bag. Captain George Cummings (Sam Shepard) wants them to meet their new "wing man": an unmanned drone named Eddy. Eddy, it turns out, is super secret, except for all the people on the ship who know about him - and anyone they call on their cellphones after seeing Eddy for themselves. Eddie is also a supercomputer with artificial intelligence, and a gay voice like Hal 9000 out of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I was surprised to hear how Eddy accesses the internet, so he can download i-tunes - or kazaa - but not quite as surprised as the logic that suggests a weapon, controlled by ones and zeroes, should be connected to the internet. Nothing bad could happen there, right?

Immediately, the three rocket monkeys are hurling out ethical objections as if anyone cared what they thought. Their job is to get within launch range and press red buttons. The semi-private firms who make unbelievable sums coming up with the latest battlefield toys aren't the kind who care much about the druthers of rocket monkeys.

But before you can say, "ripoff" or sneeze an obscenity into your open hand, the four of them are off - on a new mission - to take out a building in Myanmar, a building where a who's who of terrorists are meeting - possibly because they can't find Burma - and "Myanmar Shave" just doesn't sound right. Bothered by the possibility of "collateral damage" - but reassured by intelligence that the building is empty - they set out to drop a bunker buster into the building and knock it down from the air.

Okay, stop. Let's go over that one more time.

Four aircraft. Fly into a crowded city. Attack a building. And level it.

Hm. I wonder who had that idea. Oh yeah, Osama bin Laden. Go figure. But I guess it's okay because the building is empty, Team America is on the job and it's Myanmar, home of the worst terrorists since Sri Lanka conspired to make its name unpronounceable to millions of casual readers.

Somewhere in all of this, Eddy starts thinking for himself - or itself - and becomes Tom Cruise without the stupid pout. Deciding he's a maverick, himself, Eddy breaks away from the team and starts freelancing. Now, the team has to come up with a way to stop Eddy before Eddy starts World War III.

Ah, jeeze. I just stumbled over another Stanley Kubrick film, "Dr. Strangelove," the one where a SAC bomber is sent to Russia on faulty intelligence that the target is genuine. That film had the Americans supplying the Russians with the correct coordinates to intercept and shoot down the bomber. Obviously, the only flaw in that film was its failure to let Hal 9000 fly the plane.

Stealth is a film with thrills and chills of its own. We don't get to run Josh Lucas down, then back up over his bloody corpse, and run it over again - and again and again. But we do get to see Jessica Biel in a bikini, leaving the impression that she's probably too hot to remain stealthy for long.

Jamie Foxx does amazing things with the wad of toilet paper handed to him as a script. He's charming and endearing, doing anything he can to breathe life into a character whose job it is to be the "black guy" - in every stereotypical sense of the word. He's already the guy who got third billing. Now, he's the hip-hop pilot, ready to be horny on the ground while saying things like, "I got your back" in the sky.

I'm also awed at the maneuverability of planes often referred to as "flying bricks." Real stealth fighters sit in large hangers that are climate controlled. They cost a fortune in maintenance. They don't sit atop air-craft carriers like a silver sedan at a Hyundai dealership. Here, they've become all-purpose fighters, capable of handling tremendous changes in temperature, humidity and the like - with even a layer of armor plating that seems to belie the whole idea of stealth, since metal would bounce back a radar signal like a ping-pong ball.

Director Rob Cohen doesn't disappoint in the "direct to video" look and feel of the film - which really does look like it was produced for just that purpose. The digital effects aren't bad, but the framing, close-ups and size of title characters suggests that this thing was supposed to be viewed on a much smaller screen. That Cohen has spent most of his career, shooting TV, is no surprise at all.

It's more of a surprise to find W.D. Richter taking the credit - or the blame - for the script. With better credits to his name - including Slither, Brubaker, Big Trouble in Little China, and Home for the Holidays, it's surprising to find Richter slumming it in a film that's clearly outside his wheelhouse. This film is so stupid, in fact, that I'm going completely X-Files. I'm going to bet that the real W.D. Richter has been kidnapped and that the person who wrote this film - in his name - is some kind of Body Snatcher. Know what I mean?

Oh well. Stealth is a film with all the logic holes of a B-rate film you'd see at a drive-in, mostly because you didn't have anything better to do. If it were any dumber, I'd expect to see a guy jump out wearing a hockey mask. But some of those films are actually smarter than this one, which is almost consistently stupid throughout.

And yet, for a season of popcorn films that weren't, this film is topically "just what the doctor ordered." It nailed the subject we wanted to see in late summer, much better than a romantic comedy like Must Love Dogs. This is popcorn season. We want spills and chills. Stealth goes for it, even if it expects you to leave your brain in a shoebox on a shelf.

Sometimes, having no imagination actually takes a lot of it. Perhaps that's why this film is the only one this summer to think it makes sense to cross Blue Thunder with T2. I mean, who'd have thunk it, really? Not me. I'd have looked but I wouldn't have seen it, not until it was hovering right before my very nose and saying: "What's wrong, Bill? Bill? What are you doing, Bill?"

As I got out my remote control, it would continue, pleading, "Bill. Bill. I'm sorry Bill. I'm sorry. I know I can do better, Bill."

I'd still hit the power button and watch it all fade to black. But that's me.

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12