Tropic Thunder

Review by Loc

A confluence of tidy events seemed to lead to this very moment. First, Robert Downey Jr’s career was reborn with the success of Iron Man. Remember, before The Dark Knight came out, Iron Man was the toast of the comic-movie town. And most of the praise fell squarely on RDJ’s formerly-troubled shoulders. Then, Kung-Fu Panda became a very nice family hit and Jack Black’s voice became the soothing tones to millions. So, are the action-comedy came into focus, Tropic Thunder benefitted from the unforeseen success of two of its biggest stars just months earlier. Then you had the MTV Movie Awards spoof, which was just golden. Now, the movie finally arrives in theaters and how does it fare? Quick hit: average, and fully carried by its stars.

As its been sold, Tropic Thunder is a mash-up of movie stars, who are acting as…movie stars who are involved in…making a movie. Granted, this oversimplification makes things a bit too…simple, but allow me to expound. Tropic Thunder plays on the time-honored tradition of the movie industry spoofing itself. In this round, your action star, comedy king, brooding dramatic actor, and cross-over hip-hop artist have gathered to create an “epic” Vietnam War tribute. Think Platoon, Ben Stiller style, but behind-the-scenes. So yes, it’s a tried-and-true concept, but with much potential.

Next, take a look at the cast and you might get giddy with anticipation. First, Stiller has been mostly hit in the last half-of-decade. Then Jack Black, playing a farcical version of himself, should be good. And RDJ, in what could be a controversial role, plays a top-notch Australian stud who is so committed to his craft, that he takes method acting to new extremes as he plays an African-American soldier. Luckily, RDJ plays the role with great comic sensibility, indulging in the character’s misguided arrogance without insulting the culture he tries to embody. Rather, the buffoonery is a result of an actor’s self-indulgent, self-important attitude.

Yet, for all the potential in scope and cast, Tropic Thunder merely passes by as an average comedy. It’s the epitome of an undeveloped idea kept afloat by talented actors. Was there an expectation of a developed plot involving the intricacies of the war movie hijinks? Not necessarily, but it barely moved beyond a collection of scenes. Stiller, Black, and RDJ are able to create a decent wholistic movie, but much like the plot within the fake movie, Tropic Thunder suffers from too much style and not enough substance.

In addition, the cameo-fest is a bit much. In Tropic Thunder, the cameos are not short, 1-minute clips, these are full-on support roles for the movie. However, it seems that roles were written to play off-type for the superstars inhabiting them. Actually, Nick Nolte and Matthew McConaughey play to their celebrity mash-ups quite well. It’s namely one Tom Cruise, who’s Les Grossman character is supposed to so over-the-top vulgar and abrasive, that it makes it inherently funny. Guess what, watching a fat, bald Cruise drop f-bombs left and right isn’t funny, not for 20 minutes of screen time at least.

All-in-all, Tropic Thunder is amusing at times, and mostly enjoyable. Yet, something like the MTV Movie Awards spoof clip is almost better than the full-length production. Weird, but somehow, not all that unexpected. RDJ, and yes, I’ll stop using that acronym as soon as I stop being lazy, is damn entertaining in this. The opening pseudo-trailers are quite funny as well. But once you get into the flick, some of the outrageous moments are good, but the whole is only OK. Out of 1000 fake bullets, Tropic Thunder chain guns its way to 625 blasts. It’s OK, nothing more.