Tropic Thunder

The funniest film you'll see this year

Oliboli from London , 23/08/2008

Tropic Thunder was always going to be a Marmite movie - the crude humour, the gore and the Hollywood in-jokes are not to everyone's taste. But, as any filmmaker will tell you, the films that split people down the middle are the ones worth the effort.

There isn't much of a plot, but that's of little importance. The film is best viewed as a series of jokes, most of which hit the mark in spectacular fashion.

Stiller makes an able leading man, but he's overshadowed by his amazing supporting cast, particularly the brilliant Danny McBride as an explosives expert, the wonderful Brandon T Jackson as the token black guy, an unrecognisable Tom Cruise as a potty mouthed, balding Producer and of course, Robert Downey Jr as Kirk Lazarus as the Australian method actor who during the entire movie is in black face. This was a risky career move - but RDJ not only pulls it off - he MAKES the movie. In what is the best comic performance EVER and the best overall performance of this year (second only to Ledger's Joker), RDJ gets 75% of the laughs, namely through the hilarious dialogue between him and Jackson's Alpa Chino (great name!). This is also a credit to the writers who have created a wonderfully intelligent script. Those who understand the inner workings of Hollywood and the film making process will have an enhanced experience and get much more out of this film.

Those who protested against the 'offensive' material in the film simply showed that they've missed the point. It is not mentally handicapped people that are the butt of the jokes - its the actors attempting to portray them, its Hollywood's exploitive nature. Similarly with the 'offensive' gore - its a comment on Hollywood excess and insensitive attitude to war and death.

This is the most expensive comedy ever made and iy shows - the film not only boasts a quality script and cast but it looks brilliant too with some awe-inspiring explosions.

Two thumbs up for reminding us what 'comedy' really means and an extra thumb for RDJ's performance alone. Leave your politically correct attitude at home and go see this film!

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Oh deary me

citizenk from London [Highly rated reviewer] , 18/09/2008

There'll be debate about the political correctness of having a white actor black up to portray a black charactor,there'll be debate about an actor playing a 'retard',and the use of the word 'retard'. But for me the only source of debate concerning this film is whether

or not it is funny.And unfortunately the answer is a resounding NO. Everything good about this turkey is in the 45 second trailer and on the poster. Messers Stiller,Downey Jnr,and Jack Black all in the same movie should be able to generate laughs,but someone forgot to write a script. Beyond the setup,the film is simply a procession of lazy,cliched skits that seem forced. None of the above non-PC stuff is followed up,so what you're left with is a lame Vietnam comedy that outstays it's welcome.Save your money and watch the trailer again.

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Get ready to pi** yourself

A customer from Cardiff , 17/09/2008

This has to be the funiest movie since 40 Year Old Virgin. All the cast are on top form and the action scenes are really well directed by Stiller, even giving the latest Rambo a run for its money. Of course everything is done with a commic touch, which will make you laugh again and again. From the fake trailers of the actors at the start of the film to the paradies of countel less action movies like Predator to Saving Private Ryan.

But the real star of the film is Tom Cruise! He is fantastic. His bad language will make even Ozzy Osbourne blush. I don't care if he's alien from outer space, he dances better than any of those Z list celebs ever could from Strictly Come Dancing and who knows, you might even be converted to Scientology after seeing his performance.

Great entertaiment!!

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SPOOF AS IT SHOULD BE

hunkydomste from Liverpool [Highly rated reviewer] , 02/10/2008

Yes, I am a cynic, a bit of a Ba Humbug. I find Robert Downey Jr a little underwhelming and overplayed at times and Ben Stiller's funniness in my book is more miss than hit. Especially in his directorial debut Zoolander, which left me stone cold. Given that, I was more than sceptical about going to see Tropic Thunder, as you can imagine.

Hurra then that this for me was another Dodgeball experience. Never did I expect this to be as outrageously funny or good as it turned out to be. The fact that it is brilliant is not just down to great jokes, non pc humour and slapstick just on the good side of cringeworthy, but thanks to the fact that this is spoof just as it should be. Only last week was I having a good old moan about the endless mindless mire of Superhero/Epic/Scary Movies. Apart from the fact that they stopped being funny a long time ago, they are superfluous. Scream did what Scary Movie does way too clumsily; it took the mickey out of horror movies, using its own storyline and characters and without being cheap.

This then is the Scream amongst the Action/Vietnam style movies. It proves that you don't have to make a rubbish movie with unknown actors to laugh at genres. This is solid entertainment, a great well-made film with good actors laughing at themselves.

The opening bit says it all. We're laughing at Jack Black's character's other movie 'The Fatties' and the fact that someone thought it would be funny to row a long line of fart jokes together to make a film out of it. Elsewhere, the farts themselves would be deemed material enough. It sets the tone and you know you're in for a merciless ripping of the proverbial out of the unfunny funnies, the full of themselves actors and cheap movie making.

A bunch of actors get landed in the middle of the jungle and, unbeknownst to them, find themselves in real danger rather than the wanna-be-big-dooomed-to-fail movie they came to make. It's a simple premise but a fully functional vehicle for some hilarious and great performances.

Apart from Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr who carry the show, Tom Cruise must be mentioned. With his balding head, chest wig and potty mouth he is the funniest thing I have seen on the big screen in a long time. And you certainly will never look at him in the same way again.

Tropic Thunder might just be the funniest film you see at the pictures this year, but in any case it deserves a watch and two thumbs up for making spoofs watchable again and providing an antidote to some of the braindead rubbish that they call funny these days.

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED

* DODGEBALL

* M.A.S.H.

* BE KIND REWIND

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Tropic Blunder

A customer from Glasgow , 31/10/2008

Behind Hollywood's cameras are legions of underpaid helpers doting on pampered mega-celebrities. Egos and budgets have become so inflated that much of the screen time once devoted to the dynamic relationship between an actor and his role have been replaced by product ads, staid repetition and computer generated doo-dah's. As such, much of the grittiness of early cinema is being gradually reduced to a strict regimen of movie-making by numbers. And, by now, what the average member of the public is often exposed to upon an innocent trip to the cinema is the mass-market mass-murder of an entire art form – at a cost of £8 a go! To determine who is responsible for this you need look no further than the mega-celebrities themselves. This is partly why I found Tropic Thunder so detestable. I enjoyed this expose on the vanity & shallowness of Hollywood by those who are perpetrating it as much as I would a lecture on global warming by George Bush.

Those who haven't yet seen the film and merely want a light, comical romp written by and starring a few funny guys will also be disappointed. I'm afraid the film fails to deliver even on this front. The scenes involving Tom Cruise go beyond being simply unfunny or cringe-worthy to the point whereby funnier men, perhaps those long since dead, would be sickened by or turning in their graves as a result of them. I would suggest that even the stars of the movie should, by all rights, have made themselves feel a little queasy.

It's not that there are no funny jokes in the film – it's just that all 3 of them get lost in a jumble of film making where the ability to suspend belief just isn't enough. Ben Stiller is OK in the movie, as is Jack Black. They are too eminently likable to deride and seem more like they belong in this movie than the others. Although this is coming from a man who never saw 'Envy,' which may be so awful as to nullify my generosity towards them.

Furthermore, the character played by Robert Downey Jr is catastrophic - despite Downey's valiant effort at making the rotten role work. For those who don't know, he is essentially a modern day minstrel (white guy 'blacked-up') who has grown proud of his elective-surgery-altered skin colour - rather unconvincingly so to those who are of that skin colour by birth. This is a mechanism often used in films for some cheap comedy, and a technique that worked rather well - for a time. It was hilarious in Airplane when the old lady talked jive, for example. But the art of it 'being funny when a white person spoke like a black person' died a horrible death, or at least was beaten to a bloody pulp, when Steve Martin starred in the reprehensible 'Bringing Down the House.' And if there was any doubt as to the damage done by Martin, then watching Tom Cruise also decide to dance like a black person is where that debate draws to an emphatic close. It just isn't funny.

Nor, for that matter, is Steve Coogan, who should know far better. Nor is Matthew McWhoever – who's odd, surplus character is a vacuous Hollywood agent who goes to a war-zone over a Tivo dispute (and somehow escapes on foot where the leads of the film barely made it with a head-start and a helicopter.) Nor is the explosives expert who comes across as a caricature of a caricature of a Kevin Smith/Napoleon Dynamite style 'dude' character who's role would be cut-down to one line during the editing process. Nor is the guy playing the rapper who isn't a natural comedian and seemingly shouldn't be an actor. Nor is the joke about Booty Juice - and even less so it's continual usage. Not even comical is the laughable choice of casting a child as the main 'bad guy.' Just after his miniature silhouette arrived on screen I was plunging two fingers down my throat in a vain attempt to purge the newly-acquired badness from the pit of my soul.

But on a lighter note, there are two things about this movie I do like. 1/ The bit where Jack Black says, 'Ouch, my ass!' 2/ The fact that next to running time it didn't say 'Eternity.' In conclusion, if a friend asks you to go see Tropic Thunder with him, just look at him, dead in the eyes for as long as it takes - ignoring his appeals that you look away or respond - until he becomes so uncomfortable with the morbid atmosphere that he will be left with no choice but to eventually mutter under his breath, in a defeated whisper, '…guess not then…'

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It's OK to watch this - really

DirtyHarry from HARROGATE [Highly rated reviewer] , 17/10/2008

Yes, its funny most of the time, other times I got a little bored, but I'd recommend it nevertheless. Bad taste? Well all the best and funniest jokes are in bad taste aren't they? But the star of the show has got to be Tom Cruise, especially at the end when he does his little dance - now that IS funny...

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