Viewed in
2009
Premise
Actors of a war movie shoot suddenly find themselves in real danger.
Who should watch
Those who like wacky characters and some satire of Hollywood, and can handle some gore-related jokes.
Thoughts
A very funny film that almost fulfilled my expectations from the great trailer.
The first scene was a fake commercial for Booty Sweat, and I was rolling on the ground with laughter. Then came the fake trailers, and they slayed me. My inner screenwriter loved that part, because it was a funny and interesting way to introduce the main characters.
After that, the humor was from all over the place. There was a pretty good balance of broad comedy, satire, edgy jokes and just plain silliness. Personally, I was glad Ben Stiller's character would just be a Zoolander retread, and thankfully, he was not.
There were two performances that were worth the price of admission. Robert Downey Jr was absolutely hilarious as the 'Black' Australian method actor, in a role that could have bombed easily. I loved his acting lesson about never going 'full retard' in pursuit of an Oscar. Speaking of, I'm glad they nominated him for supporting actor.
The other godly performance was Tom Cruise. I do not consider his part to be a cameo, as he had as many scenes as the leads. Nevertheless, each of his scenes delivered genuine comedy, even the nonsensical jokes. Maybe because I was aware of his involvement, but I think his nose gave his disguise away for me in his very first scene.
Everyone else had some great comedy moments as well, and the cameos were well-placed and delivered plenty of laughs.
Despite some fantastically funny scenes, the story prevented the film from being perfect. The whole thing about being captured by Asian drug factory thugs was pretty stupid. And as expected, the film ran out of ideas and steam around the hour mark, and relied on big explosions to keep me from getting bored.
Overall, this was not a great film, but I still recommend it because of some great scenes and the shock and awe performances from Downey and Cruise.
What I would change
Taken out some of the boring parts in the middle. Comedies need to be lean, mean laugh machines.
