Director: Ben Stiller

Genre: Action / Adventure / Comedy / War

Blu ray: 2.35:1 1080p AVC and Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Plot: 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").

Extras for the release are massive, and include:

• Before the Thunder (5 minutes):  looks at the genesis of the project and features interviews with Stiller and his co-writer who discuss how they were working on the script for nearly a decade.  The highlight of this piece is a clip of the first read through of the script which is hilarious.  I would like to have seen the entire thing.
• The Hot LZ (7 minutes):  A look at filming the opening sequence.
• Blowing Shit Up (6 minutes):  an interview with the special effects person in charge of the pyrotechnics.  This was pretty enjoyable.
• Designing the Thunder (7 minutes): a look at the set designs.
• The Cast of Tropic Thunder (22 minutes):  Most of the actors involved with the film get a few minutes to talk about their characters. *yawn*
  Rain of Madness (30 minutes - HD):  The highlight of the extras.  This is a mockumentary on the creation of the film that was being made in the movie.  A parody of Heart of Darkness which chronicled the creation of Apocalypse Now, this bonus, like the feature itself, is a stroke of genius.
• Make-Up Test with Tom Cruise (2 minutes):  Early test footage of Cruise.  While he's in front of the camera he starts dancing and it was so funny they worked it into the film.  Hilarious!
• Deleted Scenes / Extended Sequences / Alternate Ending (19 minutes): four extra scenes and an alternate ending.  Most of these were entertaining, (especially the scene of Jack Black with the water buffalo!)  and are nice inclusions.   I think they went with the correct ending however.
• Full Mags (11 minutes) is a film magazine worth of raw footage showing the actors improvising on the set.  Nice to watch and funny in parts.
• MTV Movie Awards - Tropic Thunder (4 minutes, SD) a wonderfully amusing video that the three main actors created to promote the film during the MTV Music Awards.

Comments:

"Tropic Thunder" is a very funny spoof of Hollywood movie making starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, and Matthew McConaughey. A film crew is on location in Southeast Asia to make a film about the Vietnam War. The filming is way over budget, director Damien Cockburn (Coogan) incorporates dangerous methods to elicit believable performances from his pampered cast, and the actor/soldiers come into conflict with decidedly humorless drug runners. Downey is a standout as Australian actor Kirk Lazarus, who's undergone a series of skin pigmentation treatments in order to play a black American soldier. Aside from a slew of tepid jokes that never land, the basic premise is funny and the first five minutes of the film are particularly inspired, hysterical satire. The two-disc Director's Cut contains several featurettes, deleted and extended scenes, an alternate ending, and video rehearsals.

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