Any interpreter – whether newcomer or veteran filmgoer – is tempted to approach Stealth punch-drunk with abstract theories and conceptual schemes. But these tend to buckle under the pressure of seeking to realize director Rob Cohen’s vision with theatrically practical vitality. The secret behind Cohen’s air opera is how effectively it integrates musical performance and staging, avoiding grandiosity to focus on the characters’ emotional truths.

	Y'all remember I won an Oscar for Ray, right?

Cohen approached the cast not as actors contributing abstract vocal lines but as moving and breathing performers, whose subconscious seemed to emanate from the orchestral fabric, much like his work with XXX and The Fast and the Furious.

This film had some luxury casting, with an unusually rich assortment of inflection for the pilots. But for all its thrilling effect, Josh Lucas was most impressive in conveying the pilots’ vulnerability.

Jessica Biel doubled as a non-shrewish, enticing expert female pilot. In this production she thwarts Lucas --- who really loves her --- not from spite but tragic necessity. Jamie Foxx meanwhile was a dignified doomed token black flyboy, with a magnificently powered voice that could match Lucas.

Indeed this is a highly physical Stealth, often bristling with sexual tension as an expression of the anxiety that pervades its world. The costumes add imaginative flair, even if they at times suggest a Banana Republic operating in the “near future.”

In sync with Spielberg’s attunement to character interaction, Cohen followed a similar process of dwelling on the moment. This was both his great strength and occasional Achilles heel: At times the forest seemed lost for the trees in North Korea and Tajikistan, as Cohen amplified the special effects and dialogue of a passage at the expense of the larger arc dealing with humanity’s treatment of the machines it seeks to use for militaristic purposes.

Ha! I’m joshin’ ya. I totally ripped that flowery language from an Atlanta Journal-Constitution artsy fartsy review of some Seattle Opera performance.

This movie was the complete opposite of something deserving of such prose. What’s really to say about this wannabe Top Gun meets 2001: A Space Odyssey infused with Short Circuit? The best part was one minute’s worth of Jessica Biel in a blue bikini frolicking in Thailand. There is no word to describe its perfection, so I am forced to make one up. And I'm going to do so right now. Scrumtrilescent.

It’s not that Cohen is creating a fast and furious flick, he hopes to overwhelm your senses so you’ll be hypnotized into thinking Stealth is better than Cats. In reality, you’ll feel the need, the need for a speedy exit.