Zoolander Goes To Vietnam
Written: Aug 14 '08 (Updated Aug 14 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great cameos, some great over-the-top comedy
Cons: Way too hit-or-miss, jokes are unoriginal, not "edgy" or "satirical"
The Bottom Line: Tropic Thunder has it's fair share of solid gags, but it also has its fair share of bad writing, dumb jokes, and paper-thin execution
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| titan45's Full Review: Tropic Thunder |
Like a patient fighter, this summer's comedies have come bottom-heavy, saving the best for last. With weak jabs in the form of flops like The Love Guru, audiences might have had their guards down throughout the summer. However, as the things wind down, the studios have begun to deal their winning cards, first Seth Rogen and Co's Pineapple Express, and now Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder.
Pushing the Envelope?
Tropic Thunder is being billed as this summer's "edgy" comedy, a term studios like to throw out like a 4 year old who just learned out how to say 'poop'. As if some suit pops out of a corner, whispers it in a room full of unsuspecting journalists, and watches the place go on fire. It's a "biting satire" of Hollywood egos and personas, trends and cultures, and time-honored traditions. Robert Downey, Jr. plays a black guy. Ben Stiller plays a guy who played a retarded guy. There's a rapper who pimps a drink called 'Booty Sweat'. And Jack Black is some unholy cross of Eddie Murphy and Courtney Love or something. It's all too edgy.
Tropic Thunder sounds extremely promising, no doubt. The film's chaotic premise centers around three A-list actors (Stiller, Downey, Jr., and Black) along with a neurotic film crew (Steve Coogan and Nick Nolte play the director and screenwriter, respectively) who attempt to shoot a Vietnam War film. Ben Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, the fading action star, Jack Black is Jeff Portnoy, the drug-addicted comedian, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, a De Niro-esque method actor, so devoted to his roles that for Tropic Thunder he walks, talks, and looks like a black dude, much to the dismay of co-star/rapper Alpa Chino (ha ha?).
The production quickly runs into problems as the three personalities clash, pyrotechnics go off at the wrong time, and psychotic producer Les Grossman (a sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing Tom Cruise) threatens to can the project if things continue to go down the sh*tter. Grizzled Vietnam Vet and screenwriter Four-Leaf Taybach (Nick Nolte) suggests that the crew be dropped into a real war zone, with cameras and explosives rigged around them, in order to capture the true experience. From there on, as you might have guessed, nothing goes right, and everything goes even less according to plan than before.
Rain Of Madness
Tropic Thunder holds a lot of promise and potential. Unfortunately, most of it is squandered for meaningless action scenes, hit-or-miss jokes, and half-baked "satire" that is sort of funny, but sort of makes you wonder if Ben Stiller (director and co-producer as well) doesn't fully get the joke he's trying to tell. Or that maybe the joke is on him as well.
Much like last week's Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder doesn't have any delusions about it's story. Luckily, the film doesn't really bog us down in developing story and lets things loose after about 30 minutes in. The story is just a thin safety net for a long string of gags, and if you've ever seen a war movie, you could pretty much guess everything that happens.
However, Tropic Thunder's string of gags are far more hit and miss than Pineapple's, and even the ones that hit are varying degrees of funny. The film's seemingly anarchic and "edgy" style fade quickly, leaving a very glossy production that's just too clean and rehearsed for what it's trying to pull off. It's a movie about a movie being shot by video cameras roped to trees, yet it looks like Saving Private Ryan.
Tropic Thunder is billed as a 'satire', suggesting that it has something interesting to say about the current trends of Hollywood, but in reality it says nothing. It's more of 'ha ha, method actors are so ridiculous sometimes', or 'I can't believe what rappers will market!'. Yeah, it's funny the first or second time you watch it, but after a while you realize that this stuff has been done before, but much better.
In the film's defense, it's funny more often than not. In particular some of the early Tom Cruise bits are hilarious, as are the bits with Apatow regulars Jay Baruchel and Danny McBride, who work their trademark awkward styles to great effect. Sometimes, however, the film stays too long on the unfunny bits and not long enough on the funnier parts. One of Thunder's biggest mistakes is its misuse of Jack Black. His character, a drug-addled version of Eddie Murphy, has some funny moments, but Black mostly takes a back seat to Downey, Jr. and Stiller. And Jack Black has been far funnier than both of them in his other efforts. Here, he just screams for heroin and pulls guns out of his underwear. Which is kind of funny, but Jack Black can do a lot better.
A Dude Playing A Dude Dressed Up As Another Dude
Of course, much has been made about Robert Downey, Jr.'s portrayal of a black staff sargeant. Fortunately, once the gasps have cleared, there's a lot to laugh at. Stiller smartly pokes fun at both the obvious joke of Lazarus pretending to believe he's actually black, and the practice of method acting in general. However, even some of that is hit or miss. One scene where Lazarus takes offense to Speedman referring to him and Chino as "you people" is somewhat funny, but it's also probably the most unoriginal joke you could pull off in that scenario. And again, more often than not its the cheap laughs that take the place of the more original, well thought-out jokes.
Ben Stiller is...well, Ben Stiller. His character hasn't really changed from any movie, and there's unmistakable bits of Zoolander and White Goodman in Tugg Speedman. So if you're a Stiller fan, it's bound to be funny, but if you're not well...nothing's changed.
Besides the main actors, most of the supporting roles and cameos are spot-on, and actually more often funnier than the the main character bits. The Apatow crew never fails to deliver, and this one is no exception. In addition, Matthew McConaughey's role as Speedman's agent is a definite winner, especially when he clashes with Cruise. Cruise's much talked about role is pretty hilarious, although a lot of the humor depends on how funny you find a bald fat guy yelling combinations of c*ck, sh*t, f*ck, and a*s over and over. So to answer, yes, a bald, fat Cruise yelling obscenities at different people is one of the funniest parts of the movie.
The only two roles that sadly falter are Nolte's and Coogan's. Coogan's is especially unfortunate because he's such a great actor, but he doesn't get anything that great to work with. Mostly, Coogan screams like an angry director would and gets punched around, but nothing he does really evokes the laughs he's worthy of. Nolte fares a bit better, but he gets very little to do, other than be Nick Nolte and act grizzled, angry, and drunk.
Tropic Thunder's production values are, not surprisingly, spectacular. The film look great thanks to the work of master cinematographer John Toll (The Thin Red Line, The Last Samurai) and his crew...and the $100 million budget. Thunder definitely looks like the big-budget war movies it is parodying. But as stated before, the glossy production and beautiful cinematography don't really serve the comedy as well as it could have. With Pineapple Express, David Gordon Green and Tim Orr messed around with visual language and used their modest budget to their advantage, making more with less. Here, it's the opposite. It's understandable making the opening scenes look as cinematic as possible, but why stick with the same approach the whole time? This is a movie about a movie gone wrong, and sometimes its hard to feel like things have gone wrong when everything still looks so steady and beautiful.
Conclusion
All in all, Tropic Thunder is a funny movie. The thing is, that's really where it starts and ends. It's not a very intelligent or even witty satire (most of it reads like a mega-budget production of a script someone wrote in high school), and as a parody it doesn't offer anything that new. The jokes are hit or miss, and although they mostly are hit, the misses are shockingly high for what is supposedly the "comedy of the summer". And finally, it's the kind of movie that only stays fresh once or twice before the jokes wear thin.
Thanks to Apatow, Rogen, and the others in their band, comedy is receiving a much needed overhaul. With the likes of David Gordon Green adding more polish and flair to the winning comedic formula on films like Pineapple Express, their Pixar-like streak of great films doesn't seem to have an end in sight. With these films pushing the envelope of good comedy, movies like "Tropic Thunder" seem more flawed than ever. Maybe before 40-year old Virgin you could get away with a film that had as many product placements as it did funny jokes, but now it's getting old. Hopefully.
Recommended:
No
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titan45
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