Cynical Cinema

“That’s a cool sidearm you got there?  What is it?”
“I don’t know what it’s called.  I only know the sound it makes when it takes a man’s life.” 

Tropic Thunder comes out today courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment, and it is absolutely hilarious.  Doc and Woody and I were just talking this morning about music in movies.  And how the most commonly used songs in movies are ones that we would not expect.  Like, “Walking On Sunshine”, or Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door”.  Inevitably, our discussion led into Vietnam movies, and the songs that have become standard in Platoon, Forrest Gump, Born On The Fourth of July, Apocalypse Now, and the like.  We ended up playing “For What It’s Worth”, perhaps the greatest Vietnam song of them all.  Just hearing the opening note of that tune can send a chill down your spine when it’s well used in a movie.

Then I come home to watch Tropic Thunder on Blu-Ray with my stereo cranked way up, and in the middle of this over-the-top comedy, I hear the opening note to “For What It’s Worth”.  And once again, as the song plays, chills run up and down my spine.  This is a movie where Robert Downey Jr. is playing in blackface, Ben Stiller is playing one of the dumbest actors alive, and Jack Black is playing a big fat actor who stars in movies where he farts a lot.  And yet, I hear “For What It’s Worth”, and I have that Vietnam foreboding feeling.  I had a similar reaction to the scene where Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” was playing.  This Vietnam-era music is stuck into the movie with a sort of wink to the movie-within-a-movie stuff, but it’s a testament to the direction of Ben Stiller that some of these war scenes really work, even in a non-comedic way.

But of course, the name of the game is comedy.  Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, a musclebound action movie star who plays in a series of films called Scorcher, Scorcher II, Scorcher III, well, you get the picture.  Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy (nice touch with the Portnoy, by the way), a comedic actor who stars in a series of movies called Fatties, Fatties Fart II, and…so forth.  Brandon T. Jackson plays Alpa Chino, a rapper who is focused more on marketing his energy bars (Bust-A-Nut bars) and energy drinks than he is on his rapping.  And then there’s Robert Downey Jr.  He absolutely steals the entire show as 5-time Best Actor Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus, an Aussie actor who is attempting to take on a new acting challenge by undergoing a pigment-change operation so he can play a black guy.

Downey is absolutely side-splittingly funny in this incredibly offensive role.  Not content to simply be an offensive character, he is also given the most offensive lines.  His scene with Stiller in the jungle, where they discuss the pros and cons of “going full retard” in order to get an Oscar is absolutely priceless.  (Stiller’s character has just made an Oscar attempt by playing a mentally handicapped man in a movie called Simple Jack.  Downey’s character explains to him that you can never win an Oscar by playing someone who is actually handicapped.  You can only go halfway, like Forrest Gump, or autistic, like Rain Man.)  It is an absolutely hilarious scene.

The funniest thing about Downey, however, is his stubborn refusal to break character under any circumstance.  Jack Black is a heroin addict, Ben Stiller is a lonely maniac, and Brandon Jackson is a self-involved prima donna with sexuality issues.  The only normal character is played by Jay Baruchel, who is great as the centre of the storm with these lunatics doing their thing all around him.  But again, it’s Downey’s show.

The basic premise is that these five prima donna actors are dropped in the middle of the Vietnam jungle.  They are clueless enough to believe that they are still filming the movie, when in fact they have run afoul of a drug cutting operation in the forest.  This is a premise that plays itself out fairly fast, but thankfully Stiller doesn’t drag it out forever.  There are a few bizarre and unnecessary touches that I didn’t understand, like the leader of the drug gang who is an angry, violent, nine-year-old.  But as long as Downey is on the screen, we don’t care.  Even when he realizes that they are no longer shooting a movie, and that they are really in a firefight with a small army, he is incapable of dropping his character.  He continues to “talk black”, and to “disappear into his role”, which causes some very justifiable (and hilarious) friction between him and Jackson, who actually is black.

In addition to the star-studded cast of main characters, there are some fantastic actors playing secondary characters as well.  While most of these roles amount to little more than extended cameos, they are almost all hilarious.  Nick Nolte, as a grizzled, crazed Vietnam war vet who authored the book upon which the movie “Tropic Thunder” is based, is great.  Matthew McConaughey, in his first non-shirtless role in recent memory, is pretty good as Tugg Speedman’s unbalanced agent.  But it’s Tom Cruise, almost unrecognizable in his old-bald-guy makeup, who delivers the best comedy.  He is the financier behind the picture, and his bile-spewing insanity makes even the raving lunatic actors look tame.

Also showing up, albeit briefly, is Tobey Maguire, playing himself.  At the beginning of the film, we are introduced to each of the main characters through their movie trailers.  Jackson is shown in a very funny commercial for his energy drink, Booty Sweat.  Or maybe it’s the name of his song.  Ah, who cares.  It’s funny.  Then we see the Tugg Speedman trailer for Scorcher VI, which is also very funny, and Jack Black riffs on Eddie Murphy’s Nutty Professor performance when he plays every single character in the trailer for the movie Fatties…Fart II.

But the best of the trailers is for a movie called Satan’s Alley, a film that stars Kirk Lazarus (Downey) as a repressed yet defiant hoosexual priest in a period piece.  This trailer is absolutely spot-on, and that’s what makes it so hilarious.  You can almost picture this movie being made for real, with a serious actor and organ music and a gigantic period setting.  And it’s Tobey Maguire who makes it so funny.  In the trailer, he is protrayed as another priest, Downey’s love interest, but of course it’s a “movie trailer”, and he is announced by the big-voice trailer guy as himself.  I would love to watch Satan’s Alley, starring Tobey Maguire and five-time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus.  Or Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr.  Either way.

In fact, I think everyone needs to see, if not this movie, then this trailer-for-a-movie-within-the-movie.  Here it is on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7imoiUCCWY&feature=related

What’s great about Tropic Thunder, though, is that it works as both a spoof of action films and also, genuinely, as an action film.  Kind of like Hot Fuzz, only in Vietnam.  References to Platoon, Apocalypse Now, and many other Vietnam movies are plentiful, but they never seem forced or stupid.  The use of the music adds impact to the jungle scenes the way it really would in a real Vietnam movie.  And you’re never conscious of a switch midway through the movie from action to comedy and back, it is a seamless blend. 

Tropic Thunder is truly hilarious, and works on many levels.  It loses steam toward the end, with some obvious action pieces and jokes, but it’s built up so much goodwill by that point that we really don’t care.  We just want to see more Kirk Lazarus, as Robert Downey plays the funniest character played by a movie character in a movie inside another movie that I have ever seen.

The Incredible Hulk was the third-best comic book adaptation of the past summer.  Considering, however, that the other two were Iron Man and The Dark Knight, that’s some pretty good company.  And it appears that if you’ve seen Iron Man, then you definitely have to see The Incredible Hulk.  And vice versa.  Not only are both of them terrific movies, but a tiny cameo appearance at the end of this film indicates that there will be some kind of cross-over between the two at a later date.  And that crossover is certainly something that I want to see. 

The main reason these movies are great are the actors.  Robert Downey Jr. is magnificent as Iron Man, and Edward Norton is just as good as The Incredible Hulk.  Where normally film studios making superhero movies are looking for guys with chiseled bodies and chiseled faces and “the look”, rather than people who can really act.  So we get Brandon Routh playing Superman.  Which is fine, but the added element of serious acting provided by Edward Norton as Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk creates a far more compelling movie overall. 

That being said, the other serious actors in this movie are underused.  Willima Hurt, one of the world’s great actors, plays Banner’s nemesis, General Thaddeus Ross, who wants to capture Banner to harness the power of the Hulk into a weapon.  He is cartoonish, which one would expect from a comic book movie, but I was hoping for something more.  Norton’s character isn’t a cartoon, why should Ross be one?  Same goes for Liv Tyler, who plays Banner’s obligatory love interest, and yet she serves the comic book movie cliched purpose of being in distress and getting rescued, and then complaining to her father (General Ross) about his treatment of her boyfriend.  Basically, her sole purpose in the movie is to get hurt or attacked, an event which inevitably leads to more rage in the Hulk, which allows him to become more powerful.  And that’s about it.

Tim Roth is fantastic as the really bad guy, Emil Blonsky, a commando from Russia and Britain (mostly Britain…I think).  He is so impressed with the power of the Hulk that he wants the same thing for himself, and this leads to a showdown at the end of the film between two massive behemoths in New York City.  It’s always New York City when two massive creatures have a battle to the death.  Well, New York City or Tokyo.  In this case, we don’t see any people die, or at least, we’re not certain they are dead.  But with the crazy mayhem of wreckage that exists at the end of this scene, we can only assume that hundreds of innocent people have lost their lives.  At the very least, hundreds of people lost their cars.

The Incredible Hulk works because of Norton.  The special effects are pretty good, although there are some moments where we are acutely aware that we are watching computer-generated monsters fighting.  The story movies along quickly, but for the most part it is a chase movie.  The government agents try to track down Bruce Banner, but he turns into the Hulk before they can capture him, and he wrecks a bunch of stuff and runs off, only to be tracked down again, and the whole process is repeated.  There is a love interest who exists mostly to help make him angry.  And the bad guys exist mostly to be cartoon-bad-guys, so evil that they make the Hulk seem like the good guy in comparison.

With all this going on, it would have been very easy for this movie to sink to the level of the standard, average, by-the-numbers comic book adaptation.  But it’s Norton who gives the movie it’s heart and soul, something it desperately needs.  When the movie opens, he’s a tortured man working at a soda-bottling plant in Brazil, trying desperately to keep his emotions under control.  Even when a situation calls for anger, he can’t allow himself to become excited in any way.  He wears a heart monitor to make sure that nothing goes awry, and the conflict within him is apparent.  This also leads to the best line in the movie.  In Brazil, the film is subtitled, and Banner’s Spanish isn’t exactly top-notch.  He says “don’t make me…hungry.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m…hungry.”  One of the two lines we expect in the movie - the other, “Hulk Smash!” plays out at the end.  Bases covered!

On the Blu-Ray DVD I have, there are dozens of special features, some of which are worthwhile and some of which are not.  The most interesting of these special features is an “alternate opening”, which I think would have worked better than the one they used.  Bruce Banner is running across the deserted wasteland of either Antarctica or the Arctic, having just wreaked havoc in his personal life, and seen the Hulk appear in himself for the first time.  It is incredibly poignant, as it parallels almost exactly the final scenes in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein book, where Frankenstein’s monster is running off, by himself, over the ice in the Arctic.  It sets up the movie perfectly, worldlessly conveying the conflict in Banner’s tortured soul.  He can’t help what he is, but he can’t live with it either.

At the very end of The Incredible Hulk, we get a cameo appearance from another major star, one which indicates that there will be a crossover movie in the coming years between The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man and perhaps some other, as-yet-unreleased movies.  And even though I’m generally not a comic book guy, this is about the most exciting news I can imagine.  Watch these movies.  Buy Iron Man, and at the very least rent The Incredible Hulk.  Then you, too, will be prepared for the upcoming awesome.

Iron Man is amazing. Not only is it one of the biggest, best summer blockbusters, it’s actually one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Robert Downey Jr., although a seemingly strange choice, is perfectly cast as the titular superhero. Tony Stark is a billionaire weapons manufacturer who sleeps with hundreds of hot women, lives the life of Hugh Hefner, and uses his genius brain to create some of the most devastating weapons in the world. He is kidnaped by terrorists, who attempt to force him to build a replica of his powerful Jericho missile. While appearing to build that missile for them, Stark is in fact building a robotic suit of armor that will allow him to make his escape and, eventually, turn him into Iron Man. With shrapnel near his heart, he must build a device to keep his heart running while he fights the forces of evil. This device ends up, of course, being Iron Man’s Achilles heel. Or, his kryptonite, if you will.

And of course Iron Man is a lot like a lot of the super hero movies out there. One thing I have always thought is that the first movies in these series is always the best. The movie where we learn about the origins of the super hero, and he undergoes a character transformation that leads him to become Batman, or Spiderman, or the Incredible Hulk, or what have you. In subsequent installments of these series, the hero is already fully formulated, so there is no more room for character growth. It all comes down to action, explosions and whether or not the bad guys are any good. Iron Man is true to that form, in that Stark undergoes a character transformation as well as a physical one. He decides that his company will no longer build weapons to kill other people, but rather will begin focusing on doing good in the world. The one problem I have here is that just like every other movie like this one, his transformation changes his outlook on everything. Here is a guy who used to get every woman he wanted. Now that he has become “good”, he begins to think about settling down with just one woman. Is that what “good” people do? Couldn’t he still live the life of George Clooney, and still be a good guy? Or are all good people monogamous?

Well, it is Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays Stark’s long-time assistant, the cheesily-named Pepper Potts. I am not normally a fan of Paltrow’s, but she is very well cast in this role, as the meek yet competent and smart assistant to a lascivious playboy billionaire genius…or who knows? Maybe anyone could play that role. Not anyone, however, could have played Obadiah Stane, Stark’s partner in the weapons company. Jeff Bridges is magnificent, with a shaved head and a certain amount of comforting sensibility that masks his darker intentions. I hate to call a role in a comic book movie a “tour de force”, but Bridges and Downey both come close. Terence Howard is in here as well, but he is badly underused as a military advisor and sometime babysitter of Stark’s, but it appears as though he is being saved for something much bigger in the second Iron Man movie.

Jon Favreau directed this adaptation of the comic book, and he shows an absolute command of the entire movie, as well as a love for comic books. The scenes where Downey is trying out his suit for the first time are quite funny, and seem to be taken (I can only assume) straight from the silly middle pages of the comic book upon which this is based. And the actual fighting done between Iron Man and the terrorists, or Iron Man and the bad super hero at the end of the film, are exceptionally well done. This movie is absolutely pulse-pounding, beginning to end, and for me it ranks with Batman, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Blade and Superman as the finest comic book movie adaptations of all time. Watch it! Iron Man comes out September 30th on DVD and Blu-Ray (get the Blu-Ray if you have it!) From Paramount Home Entertainment.

Anton Yelchin is very good in Charlie Bartlett.  As the title character, and therefore star of the picture, he holds together a movie that really does not hold up on it’s own.  The movie opens with him being expelled from yet another private school, this time for laminating licenses illegally, and being taken home by his mom in a limo.  His family is fabulously wealthy, and he lives in a massive home with extremely fancy cars.  As Charlie says later, to his psychiatrist, “my family has a psychiatrist on call - how normal can I be?”  And that psychiatrist will figure prominently, albeit in a tangential way, throughout the rest of the movie.

Charlie is now forced to attend public school for the first time, and with his suit and tie and crest on his jacket, he immediately runs afoul of the school’s cartoon bully, played by Tyler Hilton.  However, he soon discovers that the medication his psychiatrist has prescribed for him, while it doesn’t do what it’s intended to do, is in high demand.  He figures he could hook up with this bully (the school drug dealer) in order to make some money and, by extension, some friends.  Clearly Charlie Bartlett doesn’t need money.  But he does need friends, and illegal enterprise has proven, we assume, thoughout his life, to provide him with those friends.

This is a venue that is never fully explored - how Charlie Bartlett is either a kid trying to make his way through the perils of “popularity” in high school, or perhaps he is a kid who is just smarter and wiser than all the other kids.  Toward the end of the film, that discrepancy is addressed, but in a fairly lame, conventional and unsatisfying way.  Robert Downey Jr. is underused as the school principal, who is a well-intentioned drunk whose life is falling apart.  He’s great in the role, his downward spiral coinciding almost exactly with Charlie Bartlett’s upward turn.  Which leads to, of course, a substantial confrontation between the two.  But again, Downey’s transformation is never fully explored, and is equally unsatisfying.

Really, this movie is very good until the midway point, as Charlie Bartlett becomes the coolest kid in school - providing psychiatric drugs and informal bathroom-stall counselling to his fellow high schoolers.  But the second half is so chaotic, and makes so little sense in spots, that it feels merely like a series of events that have little relation to each other.  And when the movie finally grinds to an end, the only word I can think of to use is “unsatisfying”.  The premise is good - the execution is flawed - and the finale is unsatisfying, at best.

Iron Man is amazing. Not only is it one of the best summer blockbusters, it’s actually one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Robert Downey Jr., although a seemingly strange choice, is perfectly cast as the titular superhero. Tony Stark is a billionaire weapons manufacturer who sleeps with hundreds of hot women, lives the life of Hugh Hefner, and uses his genius brain to create some of the most devastating weapons in the world. He is kidnaped by terrorists, who attempt to force him to build a replica of his powerful Jericho missile. While appearing to build that missile for them, Stark is in fact building a robotic suit of armor that will allow him to make his escape and, eventually, turn him into Iron Man. With shrapnel near his heart, he must build a device to keep his heart running while he fights the forces of evil. This device ends up, of course, being Iron Man’s Achilles heel. Or, his kryptonite, if you will.

And of course Iron Man is a lot like a lot of the super hero movies out there. One thing I have always thought is that the first movies in these series is always the best. The movie where we learn about the origins of the super hero, and he undergoes a character transformation that leads him to become Batman, or Spiderman, or the Incredible Hulk, or what have you. In subsequent installments of these series, the hero is already fully formulated, so there is no more room for character growth. It all comes down to action, explosions and whether or not the bad guys are any good. Iron Man is true to that form, in that Stark undergoes a character transformation as well as a physical one. He decides that his company will no longer build weapons to kill other people, but rather will begin focusing on doing good in the world. The one problem I have here is that just like every other movie like this one, his transformation changes his outlook on everything. Here is a guy who used to get every woman he wanted. Now that he has become “good”, he begins to think about settling down with just one woman. Is that what “good” people do? Couldn’t he still live the life of George Clooney, and still be a good guy? Or are all good people monogamous?

Well, it is Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays Stark’s long-time assistant, the cheesily-named Pepper Potts. I am not normally a fan of Paltrow’s, but she is very well cast in this role, as the meek yet competent and smart assistant to a lascivious playboy billionaire genius…or who knows? Maybe anyone could play that role. Not anyone, however, could have played Obadiah Stane, Stark’s partner in the weapons company. Jeff Bridges is magnificent, with a shaved head and a certain amount of comforting sensibility that masks his darker intentions. I hate to call a role in a comic book movie a “tour de force”, but Bridges and Downey both come close. Terence Howard is in here as well, but he is badly underused as a military advisor and sometime babysitter of Stark’s, but it appears as though he is being saved for something much bigger in the second Iron Man movie.

Jon Favreau directed this adaptation of the comic book, and he shows an absolute command of the entire movie, as well as a love for comic books. The scenes where Downey is trying out his suit for the first time are quite funny, and seem to be taken (I can only assume) straight from the silly middle pages of the comic book upon which this is based. And the actual fighting done between Iron Man and the terrorists, or Iron Man and the bad super hero at the end of the film, are exceptionally well done. This movie is absolutely pulse-pounding, beginning to end, and for me it ranks with Batman, Batman Begins, Blade and Superman as the finest comic book movie adaptations of all time. Watch it!