ViewGuide

Created Oct 03, 2008 05:13AM PST • Edited Oct 03, 2008 05:13AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   A return to form for Ben Stiller and Jack Black, “Tropic Thunder” is a comedy that seems to have given all it promised, but still leaves you wanting more. The main and supporting casts are brilliant, Rober Downey Jr. in particular as the Russell Crowe parody Kirk Lazarus.However, Tom Cruise, in a surprise supporting role, gives a performance that could change the way people perceive him completely.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   It’s comedic acting all the way here, and the three main stars Black, Downey and Stiller all gamely mock themselves and other actors in a no-holds-barred critique. Stiller is the funniest he’s been since Zoolander, whilst Black shows some promise for the first time in what seems ages. The supporting cast, including Matthew McConaughey and Nick Nolte, is also note-perfect, but Cruise is the winner here.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   Ben Stiller takes the multiple roles of star, director and writer in “Thunder”, and as a result the film does center on his character Tugg Speedman, a pastiche of many different action stars. Stiller plays self-obsessed idiot better than anyone, and so Speedman is the best role he could have gotten, helping to atone for the horrors of “Night At The Museum”.

   Downey Jr. lampoons Russell Crowe (I at least thought this anyway!) as Kirk Lazarus, an Oscar winning Method actor who blacks up for his role. His performance is astoundingly funny in places, as I thought it would be, and he steals some of Stiller’s ‘thunder’.

   Jack Black is the revelation of the main stars though, mocking Eddie Murphy’s career collapse in Jeff Portnoy, and Black’s manic comedy is channeled into a character that it fits for once, and he may look back on this and see a role in which he was probably the funniest character. The tree scene in particular is a prime example of Black’s quality, as Portnoy undergoes a detox from heroin with hilariously wrong results.

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   There were none, but that shouldn’t take anything away from any other performances here, so I’m going to tot it up anyway.

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

   Same as above.

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   The film’s stars are good enough, but the supporting cast is even better! The other “Thunder” actors, Jay Baruchel and Brandon Jackson, are more than capable of standing toe-to-toe with Stiller, Black and Downey, and their roles as the straight man actor and rapper-turned-thesp help to create comedy in the group scenes as well as provide more satire (cough 50 Cent/Snoop Dogg cough).

   Steve Coogan and Nick Nolte are great in their small roles as the stressed director and author of the story respectively, but have little time to make much of an impression. Danny McBride, much like Baruchel, is a new comedic actor, and as explosions expert Cody he brings a bit of masculine idiocy to the proceedings. McConaughey succeeds in not annoying me in a movie for once, which is amazing enough, but his role as Speedman’s idiotic agent is great, and introduces us to the best supporting actor here…Tom Cruise.

   Cruise is unrecognisable (at first) as studio head Les Grossman, but his appearances throughout are not only the funniest of the film, but the most surreal and most memorable. Not wanting to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen the film, it’s suffice to say that you’ll not hear the song “Low” in the same way, nor ever perceive Tom Cruise as facing a career in ruins. This role could be the start of a resurgence for the Cruiser, and as it is, he is the one thing you will remember from the film more than any other.

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Stiller ably directed and wrote the film as well as starring, and the concept of the narrative is brave in that he lampoons not only himself but most of Hollywood’s male actors. The music chosen fits perfectly, and the dialogue is full of cracking quotes you will remember over and over.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

    Ben Stiller directed “Zoolander” back in 2001 without much appreciation for his skills, and with “Thunder” he should receive more recognition. The man knows how to film action as well as create the perfect comedic scenes, and the film reflects this in its fluidity in the former and its madness in the latter.

12. Play Good 3.0

    Much has been made of the use of ‘retard’ here, but if you’re at all an intelligent and competent individual you will notice it is mocking those actors who play the mentally impaired, not the mentally impaired themselves. In terms of everything else, there are many one-liners to take away, some terrible but many actually brilliant, in particular a lot that comes from Downey Jr.’s Lazarus.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

    The orchestral soundtrack is befitting of an action thriller, with many bombastic themes. However, the best music found here are the songs played over the film, from the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” to Flo Rida’s “Low”, which seem to fit perfectly with the movie.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5

    Filmed in Hawaii, which doubles Vietnam pretty well, the visuals in “Thunder” complement both plot and events, and the pyrotechnics in particular are great to watch, even though some are exaggerated. You really do get the feeling you’re watching the film-within-the-film being made.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

    The film is pretty rude, and violent once or twice, but there’s no sex. The gore is suprisingly good and quite gross in the places it needs to be, but the swearing (in particular from Cruise) is hilariously over-the-top, and if you can take it, it’s a large part of the film’s comedy.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

    There are small portions of gore, and the film-within-the-film has ridiculously over-done gore to mock the war movies it intends to. The gore within the film itself is quite shocking when it appears, which only serves to balance out the comedy.

19. Rudeness Profane 3.5

    I’d love to repeat some of what was said as an example, but perhaps not. As said above, Cruise’s character is the source of much of this, but in scenes in which it serves to be funny rather than just for the sake of it.

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.2

    As a satire, the events here aren’t really that believable, though it’s not beyond the realms of reason to imagine that actors are actually like this on film sets, and with “Apocalypse Now”, it’s clear to see that films can go very wrong during production.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.2

23. Biological Surreal 2.2

24. Physical Surreal 2.2