Bark Marley Reviews Tropic Thunder!

I'll just preface this review with....

If you are easily offended, don't enjoy gore, or don't enjoy racial jokes....don't go see this movie...

with that said, let's get started...

The opening scenes of Tropic Thunder are probably some of the funniest I've seen in a long time in a movie...but there in lies the problem...the rest of the movie, while still being hilarious doesn't really live up to the opening statement. It leaves you thinking that the next scene is going to bust your gut...but it just never really happens like it does in the first 10 minutes of the film.

The film opens up introducing us to the Actors....and I don't mean Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr....I'm talking about the actors they portray in the movie...Tugg Speedman (Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Black), and Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.).

There are fake trailers to the different movies each "actor" has coming out in the near future...they open like Entertainment Style news clips. There's even an advertisement/commercial for an energy called "Booty Sweat" promoted by Alpa Cino (Brandon T. Jackson). Tugg Speedman is an action star who acted his way to an oscar win by playing a mentally retarded boy in a movie called "Simple Jack". Kirk Lazarus, who makes a career out of winning oscars for his different acting portrayals, the guy who is the more serious about his acting than the other two. Jeff Portnoy, who's character must have been based off of Jack Black in real life, is an out of control comedy actor who has made some movies that would make Eddie Murphy look like a comedic genius (the trailers are quite hilarious though).

We learn, very quickly, that all of the actors involved are spoiled beyond belief by their fans, media, and people that work with them. They are all signed on to do a movie called "Tropic Thunder" (yes, the film within the film is titled the same)...a Vietnam movie being shot in, you guessed it, Vietnam. The director is hard pressed to get all of his "A" List actors to Vietnam on time because they are already behind schedule even though they really haven't begun shooting...perhaps a plot hole?

In steps Nick Nolte, who the movie's experience is really based off of...he's been brought to the set as an adviser for the actors. He has the bright idea to drop the actors in the middle of the Jungle and leave them there, sort of an experience builder. What Nolte and the rest of the film's crew doesn't know is that they just dropped the actors into an area of Vietnam controlled by a violent drug lord who doesn't really like people dropping into his country unannounced.

The actors (if you don't know by now who I'm talking about, just stop reading) soon realize that this is not just another scene shoot, and that they are fighting for their lives and have to start shooting real bullets.

Right, so I'm not a huge fan of the "stupid-comedies" ala Will Ferrell movies, and this movie, while it has it's share of "silly" moments...it never gets down to the stupid level, which makes it a real success in my eyes. Perhaps the funniest thing about the movie is that the actors (the real ones, not the ones in the movie) are pretty much making fun of themselves...the exception being Ben Stiller who is pretty much making fun of Action Movie stars...because Ben Stiller has never done an action movie in his life.

This movies has some pretty heavy gore in spots, it will take you aback if you're not ready for it (see one scene where Stiller is holding a head). Ben Stiller is pretty funny, while Jack Black plays his annoying self he gets better as the movie carries on, and eventually he became my favorite comedian in the movie. Without a doubt though, Robert Downey Jr...who has seemed to resurrect his career this summer into one of the premier actors today, steals the show (just as he did Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and Ironman). He's the white guy who undergoes a surgical operation to darken his skin so he can play a black man in the movie....comedic genius at it's finest.

Some of the funniest scenes come when Downey Jr's character, playing the black man, thinking he really IS black interacting with a real black man...hilarious. Other actors who make appearances are Tom Cruise (who is genuinely funny), Matthew McConaughey (really funny), and Toby Macguire (pretty funny). Cruise and McConaughey play rivaling agents for the actors. They don't have huge amounts of screen time but they make every second worth the money they were payed.

With the FAIL comedies of this summer...Tropic Thunder easily takes the cake of best comedy of the year. It will even likely knock The Dark Knight off of it's perch as the #1 movie in the nation.

Go see it.

4.5 out of 5 stars.