The jokes are too stretched out. Yes Robert Downey Jr and Tom Cruise are about the only thing that make this watchable. It's too one note and stupid but there were parts that were ok. Ben Stiller and Jack Black should take a hiatus together and stay ... (read more) The jokes are too stretched out. Yes Robert Downey Jr and Tom Cruise are about the only thing that make this watchable. It's too one note and stupid but there were parts that were ok. Ben Stiller and Jack Black should take a hiatus together and stay away from projects together, The Cable Guy days are long over and I have to say that aside from Simple Jack, Stiller sucks in this and Jack Black was really bad

Definitely one of the funniest parody films of all time. Virtually every element of the Hollywood-film making process is thrown up into the air and blown up. I love this film. Comedy of the decade, in my opinion.

Surprisingly funny. I usually find Jack Black atrocious, but the brilliant thing here is that he's basically playing himself - a primitive, bad comedian. Recommended for cheep laughs.

I was absolutely skeptical about this movie. I don't like war movies much, I'm not a fan of a good portion of Ben Stiller's portfolio, and the preview just looked way too far over the top to retain any redeeming value. And up to a point, Tropic Thund... (read more) I was absolutely skeptical about this movie. I don't like war movies much, I'm not a fan of a good portion of Ben Stiller's portfolio, and the preview just looked way too far over the top to retain any redeeming value. And up to a point, Tropic Thunder gave me exactly what I was expecting. But once it hit that point and kept going, I realized there was a lot more going on than just the unadulterated pushing of the envelope.

Tropic Thunder is a consummate parody. Literally everything in it makes fun of some Hollywood cliche. Stiller's buff but dumb action star who wants to be a serious actor but can't hack it. Jack Black's white Eddie Murphy/Nutty Professor clone who farts and flabs his way to fame and parties like Lindsay and Paris on a two-week bender when he's not on camera. Nick Nolte's crusty war hero novelist who made everything up a la Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Brandon T. Jackson's badass womanizing rapper with a latent homosexual streak and more product and image management than talent. The hilariously overdone agent and studio owner roles by Matthew McConnaughey and Tom Cruise, respectively. And especially Robert Downey Jr.s amazing performance as both an obsessive Australian method actor and the black soldier he portrays. Even Jay Baruchel's role as the timid young actor with a crush on Jennifer Love Hewitt is a cliche (though I do admire his taste in actresses).

And because this movie literally pokes and prods at everything that has become mainstream in Hollywood, including the serious war movies that helped Hollywood's fame over the last fifty-plus years, even with several groaner moments there's really nothing in Tropic Thunder that I could point at as being overly excessive in any one specific area. In lampooning literally everything, Tropic Thunder transcended the lameness of many films (including a number of Stiller's earlier works) that focus on lampooning one specific thing. (It also helped, for me, that all the characters were able to end the film with some dignity. One of the main problems I have with some of Stiller's work is how rarely that seems to happen to his protagonists...what little dignity they regain at the end is never enough to make up for their intense embarrassment throughout the film. Tropic Thunder took a somewhat higher road in this regard.)

And while I'm on the topic of Ben Stiller as an actor, I have to commend him for this film as a director. Even though he was arguably the main character of Tropic Thunder, he did a stellar and unselfish job of getting out of the way and letting his cast milk their respective spotlight moments--and most of them had more of those moments than he did! This movie's star was really its whole cast, and Stiller made a very wise choice in letting that be highlighted.

In sum, Tropic Thunder was a very pleasant surprise, and I'd recommend it to other people who have become seriously jaded and fed up with much of today's Hollywood comedy.

downey jr. saves this movie. he's so awesome.

With so much extreme mayhem going on, keeping the comedy cooking at top levels is a daunting task Stiller pulls off with aplomb.

The Hollywood comedy Tropic Thunder comes at us like a mad army cresting a hill, intent on audience massacre. My advice: shoot first and don't wait for the whites of their eyes.

After the dazzle of the early scenes, something droops and flags in Tropic Thunder.

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.

Its behind-the-scenes humor sharpens our understanding about how movies exploit history. Stiller sketches comic idiocy so energetically it's almost disappointing when the film settles into a plot; yet his skits relentlessly expose filmmaker hubris.