‘Tropic Thunder’s Hollywood, War-Epic Send-Up Is Actually (Mostly) Pretty Funny

Expectations are a bitch, but they work in reverse when you have none. We saw “Tropic Thunder” last night and anyone who’s read the Playlist in the last few months knows we weren’t exactly keen on the comedy delivered in the various trailers, but Ben Stiller’s Vietnam comedy and ambitious War epic/ Hollywood send-up was rather clever in spots and contained many more surprising delights than we expected. We didn’t quite laugh as much as we’d hoped, but then again, overall, the film was much better than we expected.

We don’t have time for a real review at the moments, so a quick preview and highlights. Minor spoilers ahead, so beware, but we never give too much away we don’t think.
– Stiller didn’t annoy us nearly as much as we thought he would.
– Robert Downey Jr.’s blackface minstrel act is neither brilliant or annoying. In a few spots its rather funny, but it’s nowhere as outrageous as we’d hope. There’s a palpable sense that this whole routine is dialed back a little and the movie suffers for it. There’s even a vague apology scene for it with the other real black actor Brandon T. Jackson.
– We mostly detest Jack Black, but he’s pretty great in this. His character is going through drug withdrawal throughout, so his performance is rather serious. The laugh out loud funniest moment in the film comes from his Jeff Portnoy character begging to be untied so he can get some drugs and the sexual favors he offers are gross and hysterical.
– Tom Cruise and Matthew Mcconaughey’s roles in the film are much bigger than we expected. Both of them are brilliant (yes, even Mac) and Cruise is particularly sublime as a hairy, belligerent studio exec. People will be talking about this performance/send-up for months. It’s his best role since T.J Mackey in “Magnolia” and just as memorable. Mac’s self-aware jackass routine is rather awesome and there’s no way Owen Wilson playing Owen Wilson (he was originally supposed to star in the role of Stiller’s L.A. douche agent) could have been more entertaining.
– It’s all the side actors in the film that are the real treat. Jay Baruchel does a winning job as well, but that sort of shows the deficiencies in Stiller and RDJ.
– Danny McBride is once again hilarious. His improv lines are a delight.
– ‘Thunder’ did cost a shitload. Lucky for the producers most of it is on the screen. The big action sequence that opens the film is rather impressive; the flick is a lot more bloody and action oriented than one would think.
– The trailers in the film that set up the backstory for Tugg Speedman (Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Kirk Lazurus (Robert Downey Jr.) are pretty clever and at times hilarious. Portnoy’s “Fatties 2” is a riot of stupidity and Lazurus’ gay-religious monk tale, “Satan’s Alley,” cameoing “MTV Best Kiss Winner” Tobey Maguire is deliciously humorous. Each one of their trailers has some ridiculous song attached. “Fatties 2” employs MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” and “Satan’s Alley,” uses Enigma’s stupid Gregorian trip-hop song, “Sadeness, Pt. 1.”
– There’s a scene in the end at the Academy Awards that has a shit-load of funny-ass super-brief cameos. Look for Sean Penn, Tom Hanks, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Jon Voight, Lance Bass, Alicia Silverstone and more, but they’re blink-and-you’ll-miss them appearances.

Overall, ‘Thunder’ is not the wacky and broad slapsticky kind of comedy we were fearing. That’s a lot of positives for the film above, but it’s not funny throughout the entire film and some parts are just kind of flat-out stupid or just unfazingly unfunny (read David Poland’s review; he says some salient arguments against it, though maybe takes it too seriously at times as it’s mostly harmless fun), but like we said, better than we expected. [B]