IN THE "near future" – which is perhaps not so very near, since the Iraq war is apparently kaput, though terrorism is still a global menace – three elite Navy pilots touch down from their latest exercise in "penetration detonation" to learn there's a new addition to their squad. That the stealth jet Extreme Deep Invader ("EDI" for short, pronounced "Eddie") is run entirely by computer concerns only Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas), apparently the only one who's seen WarGames or 2001: A Space Odyssey. "I got a bad feeling about this plane," Gannon tells his commanding officer, Capt. George Cummings (Sam Shepard). The movie may be called Stealth, but the script is thuddingly obvious.

Director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, XXX) knows how to film things going fast, but he's still a few notches below gourmet cheesemaker Michael Bay. Stealth is corny, full of explosions, and boasts some of the prettiest people ever to fill out military uniforms, but it's missing that extra coating of the ridiculous – an Aerosmith theme song, Steve Buscemi as a pivotal creep, etc. – to elevate its action-movie machinations to Armageddon levels. Thus lacking, Stealth must settle for being a middle-of-the-road go-boom movie that samples from cinema classics past (if you consider Top Gun a classic, which I do).

The Maverick in this equation is blue-eyed dreamboat Ben, who doesn't do any tower flybys but does have a reputation for making his own rules. Stealth's ad campaign makes a big deal out of "Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx," but – spoiler alert for Top Gun fans – he's really just the Goose here. Because this is the 21st century, a tough chick must also be part of the inner circle (though she must also have at least one bikini scene). Jessica Biel, still buff from Blade: Trinity, is as convincing as anyone could be as glamorous Kara Wade, who bails out over North Korea and stumbles her way to the DMZ rocking an automatic weapon and a half-shirt.

Since most of it takes place in the air, Stealth's geography is globe-spanning and necessarily complicated. This is the kind of movie so concerned about the lowest common denominator that when Tajikistan enters into the story, it is both (a) literally shown on a map, and (b) explained in detail as having been part of the former Soviet Union. While Kara worries about collateral damage, Ben worries about weird science, and Capt. Cummings worries about appeasing the shadowy government types who've funded his AI efforts (so double super secret that Cummings' main contact is filmed through a window, surveillance-style) – Eddie worries about doing his job. When the pilots set out to blast a group of terrorists who happen to be "planning an imminent attack on US soil," Eddie's way with satellites helps identify the targets; he also comes up with the most efficient plan of attack.

Actually, Eddie is Stealth's only interesting character. He looks like a metallic hornet, talks with HAL 9000's soothing voice (even as he's fucking with you), gives the film's best reaction shots (unblinking red "eye" – HAL 9000 again), and is so technologically advanced he's downloaded every single song off the Internet. (Alas, he's an emo-metal fan, and he loves it loud.) After a lightning strike tweaks Eddie's robot brain, he takes a cue from Ben and starts rebelling. You won't have to wait long for this line: "We got a nuclear crisis on our hands!"

The rest of Stealth only gets dumber and dumber. As it turns out, even the "Tin Man," as they call Eddie, has a heart; the film's lamest attempt at tear-jerking comes when Eddie learns this valuable lesson: "Never abandon your wing man!" While Stealth initially aims to show the dangers of technology, that theme is pretty much abandoned once Cummings decides it's OK to abandon Kara behind enemy lines. Visually speaking, the glossy Stealth refutes technophobe Ben's viewpoint – "I don't think war should become some sort of video game!" – by suggesting that war movies should resemble nothing but.

'Stealth' opens Fri/29 at Bay Area theaters.