LEW IRWIN
Advocates for the mentally disabled may be denouncing the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder. Movie critics, by and large, are not. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert awards the film three and a half stars, writing, "It''s the kind of summer comedy that rolls in, makes a lot of people laugh and rolls on to video. It''s been a good summer for that." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News was apparently still chuckling over the film when he wrote, "Fun-impaired critics who complained that last week''s Pineapple Express went over the top ought to get a load of this week''s R-rated laugh riot, Tropic Thunder. Mount Everest would look like a speck from this one''s extreme altitude. Which is exactly how it should be. Ben Stiller''s latest sends up all things overblown about Hollywood, and the perfect volume setting for this kind of satire is 11." The Los Angeles Times''s Kenneth Turan is a bit more restrained, calling the film "simultaneously smart and dumb, mixing clever satire with way over-the-top raunch and unrelenting profanity." Claudia Puig in USA Today agrees, commenting: "There are some wildly funny scenes, a few leaden ones and others that are scattershot, with humorous satire undercut by over-the-top grisliness. Still, when it''s funny, it''s really funny." Lou Lumenick sums up in the New York Post: "Tropic Thunder is "all over the place, but it''s hard to get too tough on a Hollywood satire that in the end loves Hollywood so much that it''s just not going to take any prisoners." But Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail isn''t laughing. "Tropic Thunder is an assault in the guise of a comedy," he writes, "Watching it is like getting mugged by a clown. Sure, by my bruised reckoning, there are a few chuckles here, but you''ll definitely pay a price for them." And apparently referring to reports that the film cost $150 million to make, Michael Phillips writes in the Chicago Tribune, "In the end Tropic Thunder is an expensive goof about an expensive goof, and the results are very impressive and fancy-looking ... too impressive, really, to fully unleash the humor in the situations."
Reviewed by: quintusIX on 12/26/2008 4:18:17 PM
written by ben stiller and justin theroux (meaning justin theroux)...ben actually manages to not waste some of the best talent in the business....apparently he was smart enough to keep his distance and let his people do their thing, in this antitasteful guignol of hollywood...unfortunately, as much of the dialogue is done in speedspeak, you will either have to accelerate your hearing or slow down time to hear it...have occasionally tried to curse the hair out of tom cruise's head, who cameos, but even bald he still holds up...although a bit shaky at times, so does the movie...i give it a solid 3.5...downey, as usual, dominates.