A Very Funny Concept That's Routinely Topped by its Frequent Asides

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2012)

A celebrity-soaked Ben Stiller comedy that sends up sentimental, over-dramatic war epics and the pretentious Hollywood elite that make their bank on them. Stiller, Jack Black and a blackface-wearing Robert Downey Jr. share the center of the stage as hopelessly detached superstar actors who are unceremoniously dumped into the bush but still believe they're on the set. Each gets their homerun lines and the primary story is lots of fun, but the real stars are the unchained phony movie trailers, advertisements and celebrity cameos that speckle the picture. Tom Cruise in particular is a major scene stealer as the hairy, chunky, balding movie exec with no filter - every single one of his all-too-brief appearances left me aching with laughter and yearning for more. Who knew he had such an intensely funny side? It's among the rare breed of comedies that never stops being hilarious, even for a little while, and one of the most unabashedly funny films I've seen in a long time.