Good Idea Done Badly

Rating: 2/10 (11 May 2017)

There are definitely better movies out there that I hate more than "Tropic Thunder," and using the word hate is definitely too strong a word to describe my feelings, but I have to say it failed for me in almost every way.
I loved the idea behind the movie: a bunch of actors accidentally end up in a situation that mirrors their Vietnam War drama, but while the plot is funny the execution of it isn't. The story gets propelled forward by a number of coincidences that aren't comedic in any way, and would alert any of the main characters that something strange was going on. The only character who realizes there's something wrong is Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), but he still ventures out into the jungle with the rest of the cast. There's also not enough humor fired at the parallels between the movie the actors are making and the movie the audience is watching.
There are some funny things in the movie, however. Robert Downey Jr. is terrific in his role and has some good back and forth with Brandon T. Jackson, and there's some genuinely funny stuff from every member of the cast, but most of the jokes were misses for me. There are a number of references to other Vietnam War films like Oliver Stone's "Platoon," or the usage of the same songs all of these Vietnam War films have like "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, but they're just references without anything comedic behind it. It's literally just the movie saying, "Hey audience, do you recognize this?"
In short, "Tropic Thunder" is a lot of good ideas poorly executed. The cast is all funny at points, and Jack Black is the only one who is annoying, and the characters are all different, but the humor is not very funny and the poor story line shines above everything else.