“TROPIC THUNDER” just plain stupid fun, but doesn’t live up to the hype.

AN RGBFILTER MOVIE REVIEW:Tropic Thunder

Written by Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux
Directed by Ben Stiller
Starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson.

If this summer’s lot of superhero hype has left you wanting for some lighter-hearted fare (and you couldn’t get tickets to Pineapple Express), then Tropic Thunder should fit the bill.

The movie comes out of the gate swinging with an utterly hilarious cold-opening sequence that manages to introduce us to the mains as well as set the tone for the entire story all in one fell swoop, and continues to ramp up from there to a plateau that keeps a grin on your face, but ultimately falls flat.

• THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

The movie stars some heavy hitters, all charged with taking Hollywood stereotypes to task for their plastic-fantastic excesses: There’s Jack Black, playing a dope-obsessed comedian who spends most of time in front of the camera farting in a fat suit; Matthew McCoughnahey, as the I’ll-do-anything-for-you agent (and DeFacto best friend to his biggest client); Robert Downey Jr, in easily his best comedy role ever as Russell Crowe the master thespian who occasionally likes to get in fights and flip off the paparazzi; and Ben Stiller as, well…Ben Stiller. The movie is designed to turn Hollywood on its ear by taking potshots at all the stereotypes we normal folks just love to hate about tinsel town by taking the cast, who are shooting a big-budget war epic, and dropping them into a real-live hotzone so the director (Steve Coogan) can get real-live emotions from his cast.

The decision to make this move comes after the film’s producer lays down some thunder of his own when the film’s production gets off to a shaky start. This producer, Les Grossman, is played with sadistic aplomb by Tom Cruise, sporting a very Lou Grant look and stealing every single scene he’s in. Les Grossman is so foul, obnoxious, and utterly hilarious that it got to the point that all I wanted to do was keep watching the movie in the hopes that he’d show up again. People are talking on and on about Downey’s character and performance, but trust me: It’s Tom Cruise that makes this movie something bigger and better than your average so-what summer popcorn flick. When the movie goes off its rails and stops, ever so briefly, being a laugh fest and actually lays a little morality on the table, it’s Les Grossman that delivers the message, and he does it so pointedly and calmly that I got just a little unsettled and wondered whether Stiller is trying to tell us that Hollywood’s greed and 2-dimensionalism extends to something a little more sinister than fast cars and plastic tits.

When Cruise isn’t on screen, though, it’s the Robert Downey Jr. Show starring Robert Downey Jr. As a method actor who underwent a “skin pigmentation procedure” so he could play the film’s black platoon sergeant, Downey’s Kirk Lazarus is so buried in his own devices that even when he realizes that the movie they’re shooting has all gone to hell, he still can’t break character, which only serves to irritate the team’s only ACTUAL black actor, Alpa Chino (Jackson), a Ludacris-style rapper-turned-actor. Of course the rivalry grows, but the point of the whole joke is made clear in one defining moment in which we discover that neither Lazarus nor Chino really are the black men they’re portraying.

They’re all led by Stiller, who once again manages to play the goofy, self-absorbed, somewhat angry-but-I-don’t-know-why character he’s niched out for himself. Even with all evidence to the contrary, Stiller’s Tugg Speedman refuses to accept that the movie he’s making isn’t getting made, and so strikes off into the jungle to earn his Oscar, leaving the rest of his team behind, who don’t follow for…some reason.

The movie is, overall, very entertaining and a lot of fun, but where it’s fundamentally flawed is that it takes itself too seriously at not taking itself too seriously. The entire point of the movie is to point fingers at the movie making industry and have a laugh, but too many times in the movie the characters break down and have a little heart-to-heart or just plain do something that can’t allow you to suspend your disbelief and you wind up saying to yourself, “NOBODY is that stupid.” Moreover, Stiller’s character, a self-obsessed narcissist with absolutely no ear for reason is played by a person who famously has one character, and yet that type of actor is conspicuously missing from the tapestry of Hollywood BS.

The movie just doesn’t push itself to the limits it sets up for itself; even the dichotomy between Downey and Jackson just sort of ends with a little name calling and fun-poking, even though it’s been set up earlier in the movie that Downey’s character IRL is a belligerent fightmongering drunk and Jackson’s is a loudmouthed mysogonistic schill who’s only interested in making as much money as possible before he dies. There are some great sight gags, and Downey does this great bit wherein he flashes this big toothy grin by the campfire that had me laughing for way too long, but all in all, this is an example of a group that had all the potential in the world to make a genre-bending sendup of the whole entertainment industry and instead played it safe by poking a little fun at the worst of it and making sure to never offend anyone, ever. (People with mental disabilites notwithstanding, but I’m assuming “Can’t take a joke” is now classified as a disability for anyone to be up in arms over this particular facet of the film.)

All in all, Tropic Thunder is a fun way to kill a couple of hours and you’ll leave the theatre with a smile on your face. The first 10 minutes and Tom Cruise’s part are the best bits, but all in all, it only a better-than-average popcorn flick.

It’s definitely no Zoolander, that’s for damn sure.

• EDIT:  When this article was originally posted, I mistakenly wrote “Ben Affleck” instead of “Ben Stiller” and credited him with writing and directing this movie.  Obviously, Ben Affleck is in no way associated with Tropic Thunder, and that was entirely my mistake.  My apologies to the various BENS I may have offended 🙂