Movie Column: Fast Planes, and Famous Nipples

(andPOP) - With nothing especially exciting in theatres this week, I?m going to talk about DVDs.

A few big ones come out this Tuesday: Madagascar, The Skeleton Key, Stealth, and Happy Endings.

Unfortunately, because I am only one man, I can?t watch them all and write about them all, but in the interest of making sure there?s something for everyone, I?ll focus on Stealth, and Happy Endings.

For what it was, Stealth was pretty good.

Imagine for a moment someone taking equal quantities of Top Gun, and Universal Soldier, and mixing them together.
Actually, because Stealth is about cutting edge airplanes, imagine those three movies crashing into each other at supersonic speed.

The resulting ball of twisted metal and explosions is pretty much Stealth.

But don?t assume that it?s bad just because it?s a twisted ball of explosive wreckage.

The movie takes place in the U.S. Naval Air Force of the near future. Three ace pilots are part of an elite counterterrorism program, whose purpose is to ?destroy the enemy wherever they are in the world,? using ?the most advanced and experimental technology.?

What it boils right down to is Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Jessica Biel cruising around in ultra-high-tech airplanes firing missiles at men with beards and turbans.

An unmanned airplane, the Extreme Deep Invader, or ?Eddie? joins the team, an artificial intelligence that performs better than the humans do.

Of course, as is always the case, Eddie goes haywire and starts killing indiscriminately, and from there, the rest of the movie basically writes itself.

Stealth is a big action, mindless movie, where the dialogue feels like filler between the multi-million dollar explosions.

It?s fun to watch, but it?s got no actual substance, following every action movie clich?.

(For example, Josh Lucas is the blue-eyed, team leader, complete with chiseled good looks, and a slightly rebellious attitude. Jamie Foxx is the black sidekick, and Jessica Biel is the hot chick.)

Stealth is good for what it is, and the action sequences were definitely fun to watch. I won?t waste my time pointing out the numerous plot holes or technical discrepancies, they?re plentiful but they?re also ignorable.

But for my money, if I want to watch a movie about airplane pilots, I?ll rent Top Gun. I always loved that kickass electric guitar theme.

Of course, if Stealth (or Top Gun) isn?t your speed, there?s always Happy Endings.

It follows three seemingly divergent stories that turn out to be interrelated, and while it bills itself as a comedy, the film deals with abortion, homosexuality, immigration, and marriage.

The acting is good, but the movie itself is obnoxious and mediocre.

Throughout the whole thing, little expository blurbs come up on one side of the screen, telling the audience what the characters are feeling, what they have done in the past, or what they are going to do in the future.

Moreover, despite the fact that the film deals with these contentious subjects, it?s really just fluff, and doesn?t address the issue.

The high point of Happy endings, depressingly enough, is seeing Lisa Kudrow's nipple. It happens in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, it's totally unexpected, and you only see one of them, (the left one I believe.)

In a larger sense, I?m tired of these romantic comedies that take a bunch of different plotlines and fuse them together into a single, half-decent movie.

Any one of the plotlines in Happy Endings has enough to it to be a movie in and of itself, if only it were properly written and directed.

Instead we?re treated to a mish-mash of emotion and exposition, without ever getting close enough to any one story to really care about it.

The only redeeming quality to Happy Endings is the acting. It?s solid all the way through, and Tom Arnold and Lisa Kudrow who both take unusual roles and pull it of beautifully.

Well, I guess that about covers it.

This week Harry Potter IV comes out, and I?ll probably be dragged to one of those damn midnight screenings, so I?ll tell you all about that.

I hate people who dress up as Dumbledore.