Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Three Best Things About Ben Stiller's Newest Film: A 'Tropic Thunder' Review


I just went to the midnight showing of Ben Stiller's newest comedy, Tropic Thunder. The premise is that a group of actors won't cooperate with the filming of a big budget war movie, so they are thrown into an actual battlefield to be filmed, but everything goes wrong.

Here are the three best things about this movie:

  1. Robert Downey Jr.: He is the best part of Tropic Thunder. Downey has the best lines, the funniest jokes, and the most genuine and believable character. Some of the monologues he gives to Stiller about acting and movies are uproarious. He plays an academy award-winning Australian actor who underwent a procedure to darken his skin to play the African-American Sergeant. He demonstrates how some actors take method acting to the next level, and he does this flawlessly and hilariously.
  2. Fake Trailers: Before the movie starts, fake trailers play to show you the actors and the types of roles they play. My favorite is Robert Downey Jr.'s trailer, Satan's Alley, which features Tobey Maguire.
  3. Cameos: As stated above, Tobey Maguire makes a cameo appearance in one of the trailers, but many other movie stars make cameo appearances as well: Jason Bateman, Mickey Rooney, Kathy Hilton, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lance Bass, John Voight, Tyra Banks, Amy Stiller, and Tom Cruise. I would never have thought that Tom Cruise would play the hip hop dancing, balding, fat, cursing movie producer that he does in the movie. It is really funny to see him in that role.
Overall the movie was decent, but it could have been much better. It is basically a big budget movie with an all star cast that makes fun of big budget movies with all star casts. It has some funny jokes, but could have used more. I recommend that you see it if you haven't seen The Dark Knight or WALL-E yet. I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10.

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