Movie Review: Tropic Thunder
By Matthew Huntley
August 22, 2008
There are some big laughs in Tropic Thunder, most notably the trailers that start the movie. We see the reasons why these actors have such massive egos - Speedman has starred in a series of redundant action movies, which makes him the highest paid and highest grossing actor of all time, but with limited range; Lazarus only makes serious movies like Satan's Alley, about homosexual monks (the other being Tobey Maguire) trying to keep their urges a secret; and Portnoy stars in The Fatties: Fart II, in which he plays each member of the gassy Fattie family.
All these trailers, of course, are meant to make fun of their real-life Hollywood counterparts like Mission: Impossible, Brokeback Mountain and The Nutty Professor. But Ben Stiller, who directed and co-wrote the movie with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen, isn't interested in simply re-enacting those movies; he cares more about showing how Hollywood repeats itself. This strategy isn't anything new to us, but we laugh anyway.
As a movie, Tropic Thunder is a big Hollywood enterprise, which is ironic since that's one of the subjects it set out to makes fun of. Like Scream did for the horror genre, Tropic Thunder knowingly satirizes war movies while simultaneously paying heed to them. By the time it enters its second act, the premise wears thin and I found myself growing tired throughout the sluggish middle section (too much time is spent going back and forth from Speedman to the other actors), but it picks up during the exciting climax.
Tropic Thunder is far from a comedic masterpiece, but it often nails what it sets out to do. It's not just a comedy, but a full-blown action extravaganza, so it works on more than one level. If the movie had trimmed about ten minutes off its runtime, it would have been even tighter. As is, it's funny and an appropriate close to a summer full of movies that will no doubt be spoofed some time down the road.
NOTE: Before its opening, crowds protested Tropic Thunder because of the way it supposedly made fun of mentally retarded people. They would be referring to Simple Jack and the way Stiller and Downey Jr. flippantly use the word "retarded" in a scene when they describe such characters. Let it be known the movie is not making fun of retarded people; it's making fun of how Hollywood tends to portray retarded people and how such roles are only played to win awards. The protestors have taken it the wrong way.
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