Great trailer – not so much the movie… (and the name is Tropic Thunder, not Tropical Thunder…)
So here’s the skinny on this one. Robert Downey Jr is funny as you can see in the trailer. Tom Cruise’s character is funny mostly because it’s so not Cruise, and once I saw him under all the makeup, I was a little thrown off because his cockiness showed (“I’m so hilarious you’ll all laugh and say I was the star of the movie” in his eyes). Ben Stiller is being Ben Stiller and if you like him in other movies, you’ll like him here. Same goes to Jack Black… Some jokes are funny, many many others are not…
I don’t argue with its first week success ($40m or so first week are tough to argue with…), but I believe it will crash soon, as it runs out of people who rushed to see it because of the very very funny trailer, and be replaced by people not going because they heard from their friends….
What I don’t get is how all critics raved about it. I’d say that the main reason is because they are kissing all the stars’ butts – you can’t write a bad review about a movie with such an overwhelming critical mass of mega stars if it’s not cutting it? Chickens. The funny thing is that I didn’t see any of them smart reviewers writing a bad review just to look different…. Mega chickens…
My bottom line is that you shouldn’t go see it unless you’re a huge Stiller or Black fan. RDJ’s acting can be seen in the trailer, which captures the main takes… the trailer even has a scene that’s not in the movie with Stiller…
I’d use the PR guys that did the job for this movie if I was doing one and had the budget… it is amazing how they got it to make so much money in the first week/weekend (two days to go as I write this, so a full week is assumed). As my sister like to say “it’s all marketing”.
L.