Pure and utter crap... and that's generous

Rating: 1/10 (5 October 2008)

No spoilers but I flagged it anyway - there's no "spoiling" what's thoroughly rancid all on its own. Apparently one of the seminar posters who've flooded this film entry with bogus rave reviews found mine "offensive" so I'm having to dumb it down (appropriate to its subject,) and re-post it. Maybe these studio employees a tad thin-skinned. Tsk.
Non-standard disclaimer: I only went to this Golden Turkey shoo-in because my significant other had a friend who said it was funny. Now I want to find out who this friend is and... let's just not go there.
First off, I was never much of a fan of Ben Stiller - he always seemed just...a bit dull - until his "Night at the Museum" won me over. I was really hoping to get a kick out of this, I really was. Unfortunately...
This is easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I don't say that lightly. Ordinarily I will give points to a film crew just for having created something, even if it's junk, because at least they made an effort. But...no. In this case I'm just baffled. You've got Ben Stiller, Nick Nolte, Robert Downey fresh on the heels of his excellent "Iron Man," the always-pitch-perfect Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey, every single one of them turning in flawless acting performances - and STILL you've got one of the all-time worst pools of fermented bat guano ever to stink up a silver screen.
I've said it before, and let me say it again: Hollywood is a sewer. There are no writers left in that town capable of stringing together a cohesive sentence, much less a story with an intelligent premise, admirable characters, an engaging plot or a meaningful theme. They can do lots and lots of fart jokes, impotent profanity, shocking blood-and-guts gore, satire that's unintentionally self-satirizing, and Beavis & Butthead-caliber gross-outs. And that's...about all. I've already expended far more effort in trashing this cinematic excrement than it will ever merit, but I want to warn the unsuspecting. There is a reason why "reality" shows crowd television schedules folks, and that reason is: Hollyweird is utterly devoid of writers with functioning brains. Or maybe it's just the full flowering of the drug resurgence - I seem to remember this same kind of vacant crap about the time Fleegle, Snorky and the boys were making their big splash on the Banana Splitz hour.
What "Tropic Thunder" was trying to accomplish will perhaps remain a mystery forever. It failed as satire, as comedy, as drama, even as mindless action spectacle. The only other burning question is how it ever managed to get into the Top 10 box office. Yeek.
Avoid at all costs. This is two hours of my life that were essentially stolen from me, and I'm not happy about it.