This DVD item from Dreamworks Video was reviewed on 10-Dec-2008.
Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) Reference DVD. Classifications : Comic Action Action & Adventure Genres DVD Video General Comedy Genres DVD Video Nothing Goes Right By Theme Comedy Genres DVD Video Showbiz By Theme Comedy Genres DVD Video Accidental Heroes By Theme . Click the following link to view the cover of Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut). Related topics: 2008. Comic Action. Action & Adventure. Genres. DVD. Video. General. Comedy. Genres. DVD. Video. requestid: b3c78c81-295f-4764-9118-0c5e22020bd5
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1) DVD DVD Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) by Dreamworks Video. Tropic Thunder arrived in A-1 condition on time. I would purchase from this vendor again.¤ 2) DVD DVD Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) by Dreamworks Video. This is a "guy´s movie." I am not a guy. I think I watched this in error.
What I really expected was some tongue-in-cheek, war-lite movie. It is sort of war-lite. Sort of. It´s not really that funny -- I guess I expected some Zoolander antics. Oh, there´s some of that, but mostly, this film falls flat.
With that said, there are some pretty funny things in this movie -- no, very, very funny things in this movie. It´s unapologetically offensive throughout. I adored the false trailers preceding the film. When Ben Stiller flings Half-Squat and the child crawls out of the river and crosses his arms, I thought I would die laughing. When Stiller accidentally kills a fluffy sweetheart of the animal kingdom, I laughed a lung up my nose. Tom Cruise´s unlikable character was delightfully over the top, and his dancing during the credits was simply fabulous. Robert Downey, Jr., was almost always a winner in every single scene.
Have you noticed something here? You know, the fact I mention only two out of the five "actors" who wander into the jungle? Yeah. Unfortunately, that´s ultimately what killed it for me. Most of the characters were SO unlikable and unfunny that I found myself wishing they would all die -- even Stiller was not that enjoyable, and Jack Black was downright awful, and "Alpa Chino´s" character was just plain bland. With the exception of Downey and Jay Baruchel (the not-star-powered fellow who played the kid in glasses, Keven Sandusky). Indeed, when Sandusky is hurt, I wanted to throw the DVD case at the screen. He was the only redeemable, nice character in the whole film. (I am not exaggerating. It´s true.)
The plot is instantly forgettable and inane, which you would expect for any Stiller comedy; but since the movie takes a more serious turn near the end of the film (every single "big-name actor" has to be true to himself and face the lies he has constructed to keep himself afloat... sigh), the silly plot actually becomes a detriment.
Also, although the humor really hits the mark every now and then, it´s just that... "every now and then". Most of the time you´re busy hating the characters and hoping they find more land mines.
So in the end, I kept wondering... was this an adventure/lite-war movie attempting to be comedic and light-hearted, or was this a comedy that got a little too serious? Either way, it´s a bit of a let-down. It´s so dark, and the characters are so awful, that you end up leaving the film feeling trashy.¤ 3) DVD DVD Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) by Dreamworks Video. This movie is not for everyone. Some of the blood and guts humor was not funny to me. I know, it is just a movie........just a movie not for me.¤ 4) DVD DVD Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) by Dreamworks Video. I thought it would be funnier but I was disappointed. Harold and Kumar was much better¤ 5) DVD DVD Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) by Dreamworks Video. Tropic Thunder works as a satire on war movies and Hollywood´s attempt to reproduce the realities of war. It´s a reminder that even behind the greatest of the genre (Schindler´s List, The Thin Red Line, etc.) are greedy and manipulative producers. But the movie wants to do too much. It wants to have a discussion about race as well, and while that part of the film is done rather well, it pulls the movie in too many directions.
The cast is quite good: For once, Ben Stiller is consistently funny, Jack Black actually plays a character (and not himself), Nick Nolte does some decent character acting (Matthew McConaughey still hasn´t figured out how to do that), Robert Downey, Jr. is in blackface (and black "voice"), and Tom Cruise - well, you´ll just have to see Tom Cruise for yourself. Cruise is in no way subtle, he steals focus from the film, and I wouldn´t want it any other way.
There is nothing politically incorrect in this film. Political incorrectness is a malicious use of language and images in order to keep a specific population of people in a lower status than the majority. Tropic Thunder is aware of social conventions and prejudices and has zero interest in seriously insulting anyone except bigots. In short, having a discussion or writing a book or making a movie about political incorrectness is not the same as actually promoting it. If you don´t understand that, you probably won´t like this movie.
There are lots of fun explosions and props straight out of a horror movie. And, thankfully, very little CGI. In the end, Tropic Thunder is one of Ben Stiller´s better attempts at advanced humor. I wouldn´t call it more mature than his other films, but it is better crafted and directed.¤ 6) DVD DVD Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) by Dreamworks Video. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 11/18/2008 Run time: 120 minutes Rating: Ur¤ 7) DVD DVD Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) by Dreamworks Video. It´s not really a knock to say that nothing in Tropic Thunder is funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that--especially for people watching in theaters--you don´t realize right away they are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of the main characters in the film-proper (not that there´s anything proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges on sacrilege, but it´s an index of how much le tout Tinseltown endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself. The premise is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with drug-smuggling montagnards. Don´t ask--though the movie does have an answer--why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and five-time Oscar-winner Kirk Lazarus from Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr.) should be running through the jungle unattended and very vulnerable. It matters only that the real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no matter what ("I don´t drop character till I done the DVD commentary"). Be warned: The movie, too, is committed--to being an equal-opportunity offender. Its political incorrectness extends not only to Lazarus´s black-like-me posturing but also Speedman´s recent, Sean Penn–style Oscar bid playing a cognitively challenged farmboy--or, in Lazarus´s deathless phrase, "going the full retard." Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey as Speedman´s sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise--bald, fat-suited, and profane--as an epically repulsive studio head. Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what´s not to like? --Richard T. Jameson
Stills from Tropic Thunder (Click for larger image) ¤Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 7-Jan-2009, 097361394541, SOB-GWB-E8B-GEB-BUB-JSB-8 
Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut), DVD, Image © Dreamworks Video
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