Tropic Thunder

None of the elements of this film that have caught the attention of the media: the 'tard baiting, Robert Downey Jr's blackface, Tom Cruise playing a foul-mouthed, krumping film mogul, are very funny. They're gimmicks, and gimmicks can work as long as they're also something besides gimmicks, which sadly, none of these are. Yes, the film is a satire of Hollywood vanity, but considering the fact that so much of this material has been mined before and to better effect in other insider Hollywood satires, AND that the very act of making a movie about actors is an act of Hollywood vanity, these "audacious" gambits end up playing like desperate stabs at relevence. This script has been circulating for over twenty years, and the endless rewriting process shows. There are at least three "high concepts" competing for screen time in this movie, and they all end up diminishing each other.

It's too bad, because there are some really good gags in here, they're just buried under two movie's worth of creaky plot machinations and tonal whiplash. Tropic Thunder is instructive, though, on how not to do an action comedy. Coming on the heels of the deft and witty Pineapple Express, it illuminates the difference between scenes that work as comedy and as action, and scenes that recycle dumb action film cliches. Still, there were at least three moments of explosive laughter and several more solid chuckles strewn throughout, so that's something.

Score: 6.4