Tropic Thunder

Ok... it must be said. The Dark Knight is probably the most overrated movie of all time. Was it a good superhero movie? Yeah. Was it a great movie? Not so much. And for my money, if you want superheroes... go see Iron Man it is better. Well back to Dark Knight.... everybody was clamoring about Heath Ledgers performance and how he deserves best supporting actor. I was thinking the same up until I saw Tropic Thunder last night. No... that honor should go to Robert Downey Jr. Wow. Just look at these two quotes from his character:

Kirk Lazarus: Yo asshole! This motha' fucka's dead. Ain't no Criss Angel Mindreak, David Baline trapdoor horse shit jumpin off here!

Kirk Lazarus: I'm just like a little boy, playin' with his dick when he's nervous.

Genius! Watching this movie you will honestly forget that Downey is a white man. And then later on he turns into an Australian and he is perfect at that too. And as good as Downey is... Tom Cruise might even be better. He is so good that you will honestly forget that he is batshit crazy and in a cult. There is also another amazing character played by Danny McBride ("Foot Fist Way"). What sets this movie high above a Will Ferrell movie is that the story is not an afterthought. The characters are well fleshed out and go through an emotional change, and it doesn't feel forced or fake.  The movie starts off as a tongue in cheek look at Hollywood (the opening fake trailers are phenomenal, especially Fatties: Fart 2) and winds up turning into an action film in the third act.

There are some negatives however. I didn't find Jack Black's character all that funny. The drug addict jokes got a little stale pretty quickly, and his character seemed more over the top then the rest and felt like he had the least progression. The third act with all the action also felt a little weird.

But this is a great film, and will be even funnier for anyone that has worked on a film set. Some of it reminded me a lot of the Entourage episodes when they are on the Median set. I'm kind of surprised it was as popular as it was, but it definitely deserved to be.