Tropic Blunder

I was fortunate to see a free pre-screening of this movie with a few of my friends - fortunate, because it was for free. I would not pay $10.50 to see this movie.

To be fair, I thought the same thing when I first saw Wedding Crashers. But it was until I bought the movie I realized that I could watch it over and over again while quoting it in almost any social setting, winning the respect of friends and colleagues. I'm not sure if I can say the same about Tropic Thunder. The concept is great, but they didn't quite deliver the potential for social domination. The jokes were OK, but they tried too hard to make them funny. It felt as though they took a plot and installed punch lines in random places which produced a choppy flow of dialogue.

It's obvious that this movie is meant to be "ground-breaking," an effort to pave a road for a new kind of comedy (i.e. Superbad, Napoleon Dynamite, American Pie). The foremost one is having Robert Downey Jr. play a black guy - well, a caucasian Australian actor who plays a black guy in a movie that isn't actually being filmed. Reminiscent of the black face minstrels from the 19th and early 20th century, it's tucked far enough into the past that it's hard say it's "too early for that." But if you do, and say that it's racist - you have just fallen into the Hollywood trap of word-of-mouth advertising.

Next is the current obsession of infertile couples in the world - Asian babies. Enough said.

The final element they put in was a dancing, hairy, fat guy. I couldn't decide whether I hated it it wasn't funny, or because he was played by Tom Cruise. Maverick dressed in a fat suit with some extra hair on his arms dancing to Flo Rida... I personally don't see the humor in that. Sorry Tom. I'm sure the Xenu was really proud of the 5 minute dancing scene you did at the ending credits. What a waste of film.

Otherwise, the movie was good in featuring an all-star cast including Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Bill Hader, and Mickey Rooney, with cameos by Tobey McGuire and more.

Oh, and how could I forget about the amount of product placement in this! TiVO and Diet Coke are mentioned consistently throughout the film. Booty Sweat (a soft drink) is made up by the movie, but is similar to the Korean drink, Pocari Sweat. Apparently the fake ads that are featured in the beginning of the movie has gained popularity where they have decided to put the actual product on real shelves. And people out there really think that advertising doesn't affect behavior...