Some cheap thrills

Rating: 5/10 (20 August 2008)

Seeing a fat, bald, hairy Tom Cruise intensely moving to hip hop music after ferociously roaring at his underlings may give a cheap thrill but it will not make a decent movie.
This movie had a few such cheap thrills that do make you smile and even laugh out loud, however the movie seemed so recklessly made that I would not recommend seeing it, at least in the theaters.
The movie starts with several fake movie previews of the made up actors that give you an idea of who they are. There is a low brow B action movie hero, a wildly messy stooger like comedian that specializes in bodily noises and another self indulgent "serious" actor.
The laughter continues as the actual movie starts and we witness these actors making a Vietnam War movie. Seeing the dramatic way Speedo (Ben Stiller's character) is shot and a few other spoofs, brilliantly and hilariously satirize Vietnam War movies.
After the 15 minutes of fake previews and the Vietnam War movie spoofs, it unfortunately digresses into the story created. Perhaps it was part of the joke to create such a ridiculously stupid story, showing Tom Cruise dancing one minute and Jack Black shooting the Vietnamese in his underwear the next, but it also seemed so high budget and cinematically sweeping with beautiful cinematography of the exotic Vietnamese jungles that it seems as though this movie did not know where it wanted to be. It was also so recklessly made or edited that you barely know what is going on. This is perhaps purposefully done to distract us from the nonsensical story.
However, it did contain one of the most hilarious, laugh out loud starts of a movie and a few cheap thrills.