BrightEyes Exalts Tom Cruise In TROPIC THUNDER, And Likes The Rest Of It, Too!!

Merrick here...
BrightEyes sent this in after a screening of TROPIC THUNDER. I'm really looking forward to seeing this. The film recently received a vote of no confidence from my woman, which means it's probably quite good. If the reviewer here is correct, I hope this rating remains a "hard R"...
Here's BrightEyes...

The movie starts out with maybe the best pre movie studio logo footage ever. With GrindHouse we got Machete to start us off, but in this film we get Ben Stiller's characters movie trailer for Scorcher 6, a ridiculous action film. We get Jack Blacks meet the fats(or something like that) which pretty much mocks eddie Murphy in his Nutty Professor roles, and best of all there is Robert Downey Jr's trailer which features Tobey Maguire. It's called "The Devil's Alley" and is in the vain of Brokeback Mountain. There was also a advertisement for a fake drink before the trailers which was pretty funny as well and sets up a character and joke for later in the film. After all the fake trailers are finished we are thrown into the film within the film. Now before seeing the film I thought for sure it would be a PG-13 film what with all the big name actors, but after the first twenty seconds I was proven wrong. This film is definitely a hard R rated film and thanks to this I had a huge smile on my face for most of the film. The concept is quite simple. A bunch of actors are making a war movie and accidently really get thrown into a war. I don't want to go into to much of the story but will talk about aspects of the film. All the actors shine in this film maybe with the exception of Steve Coogan who played the director though it might be cause his role wasn't funny in the first place. The thing that surprised me the most about the film was how outrageous the actors got, and I respect the hell out of that. Jack Black is at his absolute wildest. Black plays an drug addicted actor who carrys Heroine with him in a jelly beans bag everywhere he goes till a bird snatches it thus creating the withdraw of his character which starts off slow but ends more outrageous then you'd expect from the guy since he's been playing in a lot of PG-13 films that don't push his comedic limit. Robert Downey Jr is at his funniest. He plays an actor so method that he dyes his skin black to play a black man. Downey Jr stays in character for almost the whole film and is the second best and funniest actor in this movie. Ben Stiller was very good, not great but it's not a surprise considering just how funny everyone else was. Jay Baruchel proves that he has the chops to be in the big leagues with these guys and has the best line delivery of the film. Brandon T. Jackson was also good and reminded me a bit of Chris Tucker but not as funny. Matthew McConaughey was great and when he came on screen all the women in the audience got excited. He has not been this funny since Dazed and Confused, though I couldn't help but to think of Owen Wilson who was originally suppose to play the part, and think about how funny he would have been in it. The role did seem like it was written for Wilson but McConaughey worked great. Now for the best actor in the film. The man who steals the film. Tom Cruise! Yes Tom Cruise was brilliant in this, I won't go into detail because it will be an awesome surprise but Tom Cruise played a role I never in a million years thought he would ever play, and I truly think after this film comes out he will redeem himself to the public and from all the bad press he has gotten lately, because I don't see how you could not like the guy after seeing him really go for it in this film. All in all it was a good movie and a funny one. It is always walking on a thin red line between comedy that is more realistic and comedy that is huge and over the top. I would give it a 4 out of 5. It isn't quite as good as SuperBad or the Forty Year Old Virgin to me but a lot better then Wedding Crashers or Knocked Up. I do believe it is the best Ben Stiller/Jack Black comedy in some time and highly recommend it this August to anyone who likes to laugh (as cliche as that sounds it's true.) -BrightEyes P.S. TEAM JACK!