Not the best, not what I expected, but it saved Tom Cruise.

Rating: 5/10 (5 January 2009)

I don't have much to say about this movie. The humor was pretty transparent, I got all the references to Hollywood and which actors they were digging on and still couldn't force a laugh. The only funny moment, apart from anything coming out of Les Grossman's mouth, might have been Downey Jr. saying, "We cool, right?" to which Alpa Chino (really clever name, Stiller) replies, "Not really." At least it was a slap in the face for the all the fans of "White Chicks" who once called black-face a dirty, racist shtick. Now we know it's just not funny, period -- white or black.
Luckily, I saw this movie for the first time right after I saw "Valkyrie".
Get where this is going?
Of course, I wouldn't listen to the reviews: "Tom Cruise is good for a laugh," etc. "Valkyrie" was great, if you can ignore Tom Cruise's lackluster performance, or just ignore him altogether (if they'd filmed him at home for a week he'd have made a better Nazi, I'll bet). So I left the theater, 10 bucks in the hole, and the worst part was that Hitler won in the end! Who saw that one coming?! Anyway, I was disappointed in "Valkyrie," but I knew I had "Tropic Thunder" on DVD, sitting unopened at home. I popped it in, hoping against hope to restore my faith in recent movies, which it didn't. It made me wish Ben Stiller would've given up after "Meet the Parents."
It wasn't until halfway through that I realized it was Tom Cruise up there in the best role I've seen him in yet. His foul-mouthed, larger-than-life Grossman, like James Lipton on a pot of espresso and a handful of Stacker-2s, was nothing short of terrific. He utterly saved this film for me, injecting laughs after long bouts of watching Ben Stiller do his whiny face in the jungle, while he also sent "Valkyrie" the way of the July Plot. Just a funny coincidence that I saw both in four hours' time, and that he ruined a decent sort of film while saving a really bad one. He's a wild card, and not to be trusted with anyone's lead role. If you're a producer considering Tom Cruise, please consider that he'll more than likely either make or break your film, and no matter what he does, he will not fit in.