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!