Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I can't wait for this one. It sounds insane (in a good way). You got Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Steve Coogan and a bunch more in a movie about actors shooting a war movie on location and are kinda forced (in a THREE AMIGOS kinda way) to actually fight in a life or death battle. We got two reviews from the test screening and both are positive. The first is pretty spoiler-free, but you'll get a good idea of what the film is. The second is very detailed and gives away some pretty big gags... read at your own peril! Enjoy!
hey guys last night i saw a test screening of a new ben stiller movie called tropic thunder at the big harkins theatre in peoria, arizona. i stood outside forever and then went through some fucking crazy elaborate security procedure. they took my phone. annoying. tons of big suv limos in front of the theater and i saw stiller sneak in the back of the theater. heres the best way I can describe it - Apocalypse Now meets Three Amigos meets Hearts of Darkness meets Dodgeball. Confused? Don't be - it's fucking hilarious.. ben is tugg speedman, an action movie star - basically a big douche-bag A-list actor with insane roided out biceps (basically his White Goodman character). jack black plays jeff “Fats” portnoy, a obese, disgusting drug addict comedian from "The Fatties" franchise - reminiscent of all of those horrible eddie murphy/Martin Lawrence in fat suit movies. hes a bit over the top but whatever. the best though is downey. He’s insane. Out of control. I wont spoil his bit, I wouldn’t be able to do it justice…but he plays kirk lazarus - an australian actor and four-time oscar winner whose brain has been completely fried by years of method acting. i couldve just watched 2 hours of downey and nothing else. the rest of the cast is pretty funny also - jay baruchel is a soldier and some kid brendan jackson plays a crazy 50 cent pimp hip-hop-star named alpa chino (get it?). as everybody knows by now - tom cruise plays a fat-cat studio exec and shows some actual comedy chops but they all pale in comparison to mighty Downey. The plot goes something like this: the most arrogant, moronic cast of A-list actors are shooting the most expensive war epic in movie history in Vietnam when everything is derailed by one disaster after another (some natural and some caused by over-his-head director Steve Coogan - also really funny). At one point, the actors find themselves lost in the jungle and stumble across a Vietnamese militia who confuse them for real soldiers. Suddenly the action becomes very real and these idiot actors have to become hero soldiers if they're going to survive. I won't spoil the ending but it delivers in the action/war/meta-comedy genre that this movie may have just invented.
And here's the enthusiastic second spoilery review! Downey sounds off the charts in this one! Read if you wish certain spoilage!
Hey guys. I’m a long time reader of your site, but haven’t sent anything in until now. I had a chance to see Tropic Thunder last night at a test screening in Glendale, AZ, and I loved it. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a pretty goofy comedy in the line of Blades of Glory and DodgeBall and I was definitely in the mood for it, but I don’t think I was alone – pretty much everybody seemed to be having a good time. Sure, there were a number of people around me who I heard tell the focus group folks that they rated it “fair”, but I think they were the minority (and they all seemed to be women). It spoofs Apocalypse Now and Platoon (think Willem Dafoe’s last stand in particular). Plus there’s clips of other movies the characters have worked on, all of which are hi-frickin’-larious and spoof a wide variety of other movies. The movie starts off with an epic Vietnam war movie being made – the most expensive war movie ever made we come to find out. Unfortunately, the actors are all prima donnas whom the director has no control over, and the director’s just screwed up in a major way, enough to bring the wrath of the studio down upon him. The Vietnam Vet whose autobiography is what this “movie” is based on convinces the director to take the actors “into the shit” and dump them there, then film them guerilla style to get something “real.” With the help of the Special Effects Coordinator, they do so, only to end up landing right in the middle of an Asian drug lord’s domain. The drug lord thinks they’re DEA out to get them so they begin kidnapping them, while the actors try to figure out if they’re really being filmed or if what’s happening is real. Ben Stiller plays Tug Speedman, an action star whose Scorcher series has topped the box office again and again. He’s not faring too well lately because he tried going serious by playing a simpleton in Simple Jack, and it completely failed at the box office. The clips of Simple Jack are hilarious Forrest Gump-esque spoofs, plus his performance in Jack leads to a fantastically written conversation between Stiller and Robert Downey Jr., who paints a great history of playing retarded on the silver screen. And of course this role ends up becoming a key part later in the movie to hilarious effect. Speedman is also obsessed with saving pandas, Tivo, and adopting a foreign child. Robert Downey Jr. plays 7-time Academy Award winning blonde Australian actor Kirk Lazarus who is playing a black commander of their unit. He’s so into his role that he went through a lengthy skin pigmentation-darkening process to look African-American, and who stays in character through (mostly) the whole film. When Alpha Chino asks him why he’s still talking like that, he says he never drops character until after he’s done the DVD commentary. Great stuff. Speaking of Alpha Chino, Brandon T. Jackson, who I don’t think I’ve seen before, does a great job as the rapper-clothing designer-drink designer-booty smacker-and now actor. He does a great job, and really plays off of Downey’s “black” performance well. Jack Black is a cracked out actor who is out of drugs because they’re left in the jungle. He’s pretty much playing crazy Jack Black as he goes through withdrawal. Not that that’s a bad thing. The scene when they’ve tied him to a tree and he tries to convince each of them to let him go pretty much got the biggest laughs the whole movie. Jay Baruchel is the geeky kid who passes out in Knocked Up, and plays Kevin Sandusky, the actor who gets a role in this movie and is a huge break for him, hoping it’ll get him laid finally. He’s the only one who’s taking the movie making seriously, who’s read the book that the movie’s based on, who went to rehearsals, who went to the boot camp to train for the movie, or who’s actually read the script. And when they’re dropped in the jungle, he’s the only one who can actually read the map. Much to Speedman’s chagrin. Jay’s one of those actors who turns up in a lot of stuff and who I always like, and hope that he gets bigger roles. This is a great role for him. Steve Coogan plays the director of the movie, and does it fantastically. Without giving anything away, I’ll just say that his final scene came as a complete surprise and was a riot, mostly because of what Speedman does afterward. It’s so disgusting but you’ll be laughing yourselves silly. Matthew McConaughey plays Speedman’s agent, and is as smooth-talking and ass-kissing as I always picture Hollywood agents to be. He’s fantastic, though he figures into the climax in a really awkward way. I won’t say how, but considering how early I saw this film, I’m thinking they may be wondering about doing some reshoots for the ending. It just felt awkward. Maybe the focus group after the movie will convince them of this as well. Nick Nolte plays the Vietnam Vet who wrote the book “Tropic Thunder” which is the basis for this “movie”. It’s a total Nick Nolte role – brooding, disturbed vet. Nothing new for Nolte, but it’s great seeing him live it up in this type of movie instead of being so brooding and meaning it. Danny McBride plays the Special Effects Coordinator, and while I’ve never heard of him before, his role is great because he’s what you’d think of as someone really too into blowing shit up. He’s got one ear all burned off and is missing a finger. When it comes time to take charge at the end, he’s loaded up with an arsenal. Very funny guy. Tobey Maguire and a slew of other actors have cameos (I’ll only mention him because he’s mentioned on IMDb already). His is really the only one that is worth calling a cameo – it’s a very funny one. The other cameos are all just real actors playing themselves at the Academy Awards. And then there’s Tom Cruise. From the leaked photo and knowing what the story was, I thought he was going to be some crazy Kurtz guy up the river who they run into. I also thought it would be more of a cameo. But it’s a full-fledged supporting role, though I would hate to call his character supporting. He dominates the screen when he’s on. I won’t say what capacity he’s in the movie, but this character is right up there with Frank T.J. Mackey as one of Cruise’s nastiest characters. I am never sure what to expect with Cruise, but he pulled off the comedy in this one like you wouldn’t believe. And since I brought up Coogan’s final scene, I have to say that Cruise’s final scene was spot-on perfect. I couldn’t stop laughing. Of course his opening scene was great too. What can I say, I loved him in this. Now that I’ve seen what he can do in a movie like this, I can’t wait to see him and Ben Stiller paired up in The Hardy Men. Considering it’s so far away from being released, I was surprised that it looked so good. I only noticed a few spots that still needed effects work. The music felt finished as well. Lots of songs which all fit well – hopefully they get the rights to all of them. If the score wasn’t done yet, they sure fooled me. It never sounded like bits and pieces of other movie scores like test screenings so often do (ie. Transformers, which was scored with all of Bay’s other movie scores). Then again, they do play the theme from “Last of the Mohicans” a few times, but it’s during the fake movie scenes, so it actually fit really well and would almost be funnier if they kept it in. Probably won’t though. My only real problem is the ending. It ties in well w/the opening, but then it devolves and falls a bit flat. It’d still work playing like it is, but it would be that much better if they find a way to really punch up the humor. It’s hard to say much about it without totally describing the scenes, so I’ll just say it could use some work and leave it at that. Overall, I had a great time watching this movie. Never having been a huge Ben Stiller fan, I thought he did a fantastic job directing, co-writing, and acting in this. The casting was perfect and I hope the Blu-Ray has a commentary w/all the actors together (and see if Robert Downey Jr. does it in character). It’d be a riot to hear them talking about their stories of making this one. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the rambling review. Until next time. The Movie Monkey
