The Reel Rejects - TROPIC THUNDER (2008) IS FREAKIN' HYSTERICAL!! MOVIE REVIEW!!

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is the cold habitual And it is the cold of The froy At his Sommet Coors Light

Starting point is 00:00:08 T'enveu in Froude Celebrate in a fashion responsible You dewe have the age legal

Starting point is 00:00:12 for consuming of alcohol All All right Well Ladies and Gentlemen Before we get

Starting point is 00:00:26 I just need Take a little Stan Before we go into this review i want to think prepper for editing down the reaction highlights here yes because you guys have been absolutely slaying it as of late whole team prepper thumbnail team included you guys are massive part of this channel you are part of the family so thank you very much for uh continuously being able to get these videos visible for uh our viewers here yeah on to the review we watch tropic

Starting point is 00:00:57 Thunder. If you're listening to this review on Apple or Spotify or Clipson Shorts channel, let us know. Let us know. Let us know if it's on the Clips and Shorts channel. I keep forgetting to put the reviews up there sometimes. Actually, quite often I'm forgetting. So, yeah, I had seen this one time. I remember I went opening night. And it was been like a good chunk of time. What's, like, 15 years. Yeah, 17, 17. 17. yes yeah yeah 17 years uh so yes it's been 17 years as i've seen it and the parts that i remembered the most were the downy junior lines from the trailer specifically like i'm the dude playing the dude disguises like that part i remembered

Starting point is 00:01:43 and a couple of other lines but for the most part uh yeah it's felt like a really cool experience to do again but i'm curious to hear your thoughts first what do you think oh man i have a great time this was hilarious uh i grew of seeing this movie and cultural osmosis and i may watch it one time around the time this came out many moons ago but watching it uh as a man in his 30s and fully sober i really enjoyed it i had a really fun time with it i think it's a really impressive not only knowing that ben stiller is someone who's kind of been part of the comedy zeitgeist for so long but even seeing his versatility as a director having watched something like severance to for even

Starting point is 00:02:27 well this I'm sure he I think he's done other movies as well like I want to say he did Walter Mitty which I saw one so I know I remember huh he did the Zoolander movies oh he did the Zoolanders that's how I got John Boyd to came you oh you haven't seen them okay yeah I remember that but yeah I really enjoyed I thought it was a lot of fun I think you get a great job balancing all these different actors and their dynamics that were each unique to speak to a different archetype of actor you know like the guy who's the sponsor and who like wants to promote all his stuff on the side in addition to doing films the new guy the the the gravitas of a of a of a what's it called method actor and ben still like there were the dying action star and then you have the the comedy addicted to drugs an archetype we've seen through Hollywood and how those guys interplay with one another but and you know they say comedy is rooted in like an element of truth so no these are

Starting point is 00:03:25 types of guys do exist but what makes it comical is the situation you put them in and raising the temperature on those archetypes and how they interact not only with each other but those uh the circumstance that they're in and i think they did a great job if this was creative but also weirdly homage certain types of films in a way that wasn't necessarily making fun of it but putting characters that were heightened in a situation that added to the comedy because I can easily see a version of like oh actors go to a location to play the real guys they find themselves in a situation as a more serious film but the fact that we had this like almost not absurdist but yeah heightened a version of that only made that

Starting point is 00:04:13 even more funny but yeah I had a really great time with it I understand why it's a classic yeah man what do you think uh I would echo all the same sentiments I think for a movie like this, you need a guy like you need a person like a Ben Stiller who's been around the industry because it's more than just spoof of the types of films. It's also a commentary on the industry and the greediness of the industry. You know, it's one of those films where we can easily like talk for two minutes and be like, funny, this is funny, this is funny. And it's funny. But I think this is one of the, this is a great example of a comedy that works because of all the things around. it that are not funny and the not funny stuff is what makes the funny stuff hilarious and you know

Starting point is 00:05:00 goes a much bigger notch above funny uh with understanding it was like dawning on me the closer regard to the finality of how there's a lot of loneliness in all these characters that's kind of like a common thread right like they really drive that home with ben siller's character of how he's a very lonely guy and he he wants connection very much um jack black doesn't feel respected and no matter what he does he feels like he's got to rely on the lowest form of his type of humor in order to get approval downy junior he also doesn't have a true sense of his own grounded identity you know and he feels kind of empty and you see that with the director who's helming the film the Steve

Starting point is 00:05:43 Coogan character another guy who's like I just need approval in some way there's a lot of like seeking approval which in a lot of ways is is what I hear and I have seen firsthand of what it feels like to be part of the industry you know is it's a lot you're constantly waiting for the approval of others uh in a lot of the aspects of what you do and i like how they drive that home allowing nuances for every one of the characters that i think actually is really cool and and they know how to give like a line or two simply to add that nuance to the character uh you you see that with like the best example it's matthew mcconaughey with that one line about his son it's so brief it's it's like 10 seconds even that in the movie like at least you

Starting point is 00:06:27 get a cheeser as a photo of the son and then to even have the payoff at the end to show a character arc that he just survived death and uh and he wants to be with the son who he didn't appreciate before then you got jack black going through a character arc as well who's who's getting clean as the movie's progressing and and to have like a symbolic moment for him when he uses the emotion of the temptation and drives that like the cause of why he feels like he's a drug addict and and directs that force onto the villains again i know this sounds like silly to talk about when it's like it's a fun it's comedy but again that's what makes this movie funny is all the stuff around it that's not funny right and uh the insecurities that it plays on with every one of these characters

Starting point is 00:07:08 diny jr gets a character art again here even alpha alpha chino alpha chino he gets to find he gets to me with the love the person who loves the lance that he loves like i love how detail oriented they are to their characters just enough where they don't bog down this stuff that's not funny where to the point where now you're just doing a psychological thriller you know or a drama they know how to provide enough um in order for the the for the comedy thing otherwise you're just watching a sketch right and this movie could have easily been that you know a series of sketches but a series of improv bits um but they had like an actual drive and direction and um and and and i think like uh we're highlighting ben stiller's direction i haven't seen

Starting point is 00:07:59 severance and i didn't know he directed severance up until like a few weeks ago i didn't know he was actually one of the directors and looking at his direction here the undertaking that he must have had to star in it and direct sounds very difficult and for a film where they use a lot of practicality but knowing when cg i would make it funny i thought was cool yeah but like like you or like puppetry like when you throw it was a little boy off the river it's like it's obviously a doll and that's part of what makes it funny because it's so ridiculous it's so absurd um but i like how it looked like a film the whole time it didn't feel like a parody it they used that backdrop of a via as even if you're not that familiar with vietnam war movies you're kind of

Starting point is 00:08:47 familiar i think the average person is kind of familiar with like the vibe and the look of what a lot of these movies do even if you haven't really seen a lot of them and they use that as the backdrop for this while putting your actors on a mission and they're going through like tropes of a vietnam war movie right down to where they're having their like emotional vulnerability talk before they go in for the rescue mission the night before we're like we might not make it out alive and like what are you hoping to get back home to i thought it's i think it's a really smart film where it can be really easy to just look at like uh the humor on stuff but what did you think about we're going to say something specific oh no what was we're going to ask me i was going to ask

Starting point is 00:09:30 you about uh r dj's character here i really want to like talk about him i thought it was great i thought it was an interesting line that he was walking between a character that was genuine and not trying to be a caricature especially you know we obviously have a history in hollywood of black face but i think the way he was able to approach it was from a very genuine place because he was the guy playing a guy playing another guy and it's coming from a guy who was who had a sense of uh lost identity who was trying to reclaim that through a role and i thought i watched this parallel as we're watching the film of Brandon T. Jackson's character calling him out on playing a black guy, whereas R.D.J.'s character was calling out Ben Stiller for going a full R. And I thought it was

Starting point is 00:10:20 funny that, you know, that he was not aware of his own takings for going too far where he called someone out for going too far. So I thought that was really funny. But I think that, you know, his his performance in this movie was so hilarious because you can't really you can you said it to earlier in the film you can't really tell that it's him outside of his eyes of obviously all know already day looks like but his his his mannerisms his uh vocal and what's the vocal vocal inflections were all really you know specific to this kind of guy he was playing and i'm very curious to know who his inspirations were and like did he like watch a bunch of movies was he modeling off someone specific i thought he was

Starting point is 00:11:07 great i think he was the standout far and away and it's funny because you know he out of all these characters he is the one actor who is actually the one who's known for more serious roles for him to play the characters of the guy playing serious roles is really funny yeah that's a great point yeah man but that's how i feel about it thus far um yeah i think that all of them had a had a really interesting job of having to walk the line of being over the top

Starting point is 00:11:40 or also being genuine at the same time because the heart and the truth of comedy is what makes it hit harder because there is an element of truth to what is happening there. So for them to touch on that loneliness and that that that I guess emptiness

Starting point is 00:11:54 or feeling of feeling like semi like an outsider or lost is what added to that made it great. But yeah, man. what did you think of rdj i feel like that's a role where he could have easily only been a character that was just going for the comedy it could have been one note right like the same fucking joke like he's making fun of a guy playing a black guy and he's saying shit that's like borderline racist you know uh but that wasn't there was so much more and you could feel it early on like

Starting point is 00:12:26 I've liked how everyone took themselves way too serious. Yeah, you know, and I think that's part of, again, that's a part of what makes it funny is because actors are known a lot of the time, not, not all of them, but a lot of time, it's like, and I say it, I've been saying it about like last week I've been really dawned on me, like I got the silliest job that I take so serious, which makes me take myself seriously and it's made me loosen up a lot more since i've been like yeah i don't need to take myself that serious isn't that serious what i do you know it's like we're fucking like we mainly do movie reactions it's not that serious so uh and so to be kind of like in tune with

Starting point is 00:13:08 that feeling um the the the the the the robert downy junior character in particular uh with like he has a level of like assertiveness and you could feel the other guy in the i like how it wasn't him only playing the black dude he was definitely playing the laslo guy playing the black guy right you know like there was so there was like extra layers there it wasn't just rdj skipping a beat to the black guy he's playing he's he's doing like the whole workaround to it and you could you could tell that he's doing the whole work around to it because like i'm sure he did do that like watch some movies get the rhythm and the cadence down all these all these like fun stuff but he it seems it would have appear he really rooted it though in the insecurity of what this other guy is yeah which makes the

Starting point is 00:13:58 characters somehow even like somehow feel human and allows you to like take jabs at him in a way that is beyond people going you're being racist it takes jabs even further in a and a heavier commentary way so i i was extremely impressed with how they did how he did the role yeah because the him the joke wasn't that oh he's doing a a black character which makes it funny it was the fact that he was a guy playing a black character who was taking that character seriously as an actual person but also i'll be very impressive him Robert dunan jr and american actor playing an australian playing a black man playing an asian man yeah yeah it was even more hilarious he's like he had it's funny when he's in character's the as the asian guy he's still doing the

Starting point is 00:14:45 black voice but it's like the black whatever the black man's character name i don't know what his name I can't remember the but whatever if the black man was going under cover is how he played it which is so much funny because he could have just been the Asian the Australian guy he just done a Chinese voice or Vietnamese voice is the Vietnamese is I don't know I don't know my half Asian ass wants to get away with saying that I could say that but I should know yeah I don't I don't actually know it's what is what is the part there's a part in Asia that confuses me where it's like people think they're tie but they're not tied because they live there i forget where it is vietnamese vietnam it's one of those where i get it like really

Starting point is 00:15:23 mixed up correct me in the comments please i would like to be educated um so yeah i thought he was really good and and i thought jack black too could have easily gone overboard actually i think i remember like 2008 gregg i would have been 17 or 18 at the time uh feeling like he was annoying i remember that i was like kicking into my brain thinking he was annoying watching it but i I didn't find him annoying at all this time. I thought he was like hysterical. And it's weird how like watching this same performance years later, I would have like a moment in my head that pop up like,

Starting point is 00:15:56 I remember being like annoyed watching this. But not this time. And I also thought it was kind of interesting that even he himself was playing a character. I feel like he was when he was, they had like the parody trailer. It felt like they were like a heightened caricature of the type of character Jack block would play. But also when he was the drug.

Starting point is 00:16:15 got a version of him it was also against type of what jack black would play because i've never seen him play this kind of character before usually like the fun guy so i think that it was it was interesting and hilarious getting to see him kind of you know struggling the entire movie because we don't really get to see him in that kind of role in support and the only other example i've seen of him recently in a group dynamic playing a guy in the jungle would be the jimongi movies which is a very different type of movie than this and i think it just speaks to you know we were accustomed to jack black being the fun hilarious guy but i think especially in a page either team setting he does a lot of family films now you know my craft it also speaks to his diversity as an actor as well being able to play

Starting point is 00:17:00 these these different types of guys in the comedy genre yeah you see i i i would i would totally echo that that sentiment because i think jack black um easily is playing a character here that that that people would probably just chalk up to it's just jack black being you know energetic and loud again when i would really disagree with that it does seem rooted in a guy who feels like he is not respected and that's where the drug addiction comes out of and even the escalation of his like withdrawals how extremes are getting to a guy who's like on the verge like he's never had an opportunity to get clean and now he might get clean he doesn't want to risk it and even tempted up like i was surprisingly good character work for what otherwise could have been a joke about the drug addict and the person who's like let loose and you can't ensure because he's you never know what you know toxic behavior he might do or harm to himself he might do you know uh yeah i thought that was really that was really cool that was really smart a comedy were all five actors who are the the stars get arcs is pretty rare and even for matthew mccanay who wasn't he who wasn't that funny but uh you needed kind of a guy who

Starting point is 00:18:13 would again i liked how matthew mccanay he he treated his role like a drama you know like it was really and it worked though it works so well like he's had he had a couple of funny morning like that moment with his son is one of the funniest moments to me when he looks at the photo he's disappointed like it's a funny visual moment and and uh yeah i think you know my other favorite shot like this is it's rare where i say it's like oh man there's like a there's shots in here that that make me laugh like the the shot of him of jack black running with the little boy and the gunpointed at him going for the drugs in his underwear and saying don't judge me it's like a super funny moment it's like one second but it's so fucking

Starting point is 00:18:55 funny to me about absurd it is and the layers on it are really funny there's like a really truly funny layered comedy moments so yeah Matthew McConaughey treating it like a drama with a few funny moments that actually helps it that makes it helps the other stuff feel funny and adds to like some real stakes especially when so i think even now you'd believe it more that a studio would sacrifice it's after if it meant they could make more money you know it was sad but true also yeah yeah also tom cruise is great yeah man i i imagine this was an extreme shocker back when the 2008 when this came out because of the reputation tom cruise has as an action lead but i think that this man is an unsung hero he needs to do more comedies because it's really

Starting point is 00:19:43 freaking funny. I believe the trajectory of Tom Cruise goes like this. I've been pretty obsessed with Tom Cruise, but I'm trying to remember the date lineup here. This had to have been after Mission Impossible 3. The Mission Impossible 3 was considered a box office failure. It's incredible. Incredible movie. I love that movie. It's my favorite in the missions. And it was considered box office failure. And that was around the time where he was like jumping on couches about Katie Holmes and going on Mount Lauer and saying people shouldn't be taking medication uh you know like what crazy there's like there's a crazy period of tom cruise he's like freaking hardcore about scientology and he's really outspoken about and he's like it's

Starting point is 00:20:21 just the intense over like the scary american psycho tom cruise that obviously he's gotten some PR work and he has like don't mention now significantly he's like rarely talks about his personal life now and uh yeah there was like that few years stretch and they thought that that affected him at admission impossible three and that affected the performance was there's real life antics so they temporarily let him go from paramount and that's what we didn't get admission for for quite a while and now he like to have his career sustained now he mainly um does you know movies where he's risking his life yeah it works he bounced back it's working out great but watching a performance like this which i believe came out around that time was especially a shock for a guy who

Starting point is 00:21:08 was as intense off camera and that was being known how intense he was and to see him take the piss out of himself and actually do a role that is genuinely hilarious was a big shock for people and then to be like dancing around and yeah he's believable he makes the makeup feel believable because the makeup at first is ridiculous but he makes it believable so this also came out during a lull during his career is what you're saying it was a wonky time during his career yeah he was he never shot down to like oh he's a has been or some shit but it was definitely like the most wobbly time of oh are we gonna like tom cruise now because his personal life shit is getting in the way i think that's so interesting that both tom cruise and robert down and junior in 2008 are starring in this movie both

Starting point is 00:21:53 doing extreme makeup and extreme characters uh that was right after iron man i think for him oh okay but the same year though but yeah because arming 2008 so i wonder which one he filmed first but yeah the fact that They're both these two guys, even though it's also funny that Tom Cruise is supposed to play Iron Man at one point. But these two megastars are both in the, this lower point of their career are the highlights of this film, which is crazy. And they don't share a single scene together. Which is wild. I would love to see Tom Cruise and R.D.J. in a movie together. I love to see it too.

Starting point is 00:22:24 I'd love to just see like Tom Cruise and R.D.J. Like, how was that? But like R.D.J., you know, he just won the Oscar for a dramatic role. And I would like to see him. which weird is I see him way less here than I do in that role. I still see way more RDJ and the Oppenheimer role than here for obvious reasons. Anyway, but yeah, I would like to see RDJ and Tom Cruise work together. I'd like to see Tom Cruise do more comedies and do more just roles.

Starting point is 00:22:54 I'd like to see Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey starring a movie together. Like how cool would that be. Yeah, there's a lot of like crossing here. And I appreciate that it wasn't only a cameo fest. like everyone was given something of substance to do even if they were only there briefly uh yeah yeah and then like uh who plays alpha chino i thought he was really good too brandy jackson brandy jackson yeah he was really good uh the way how he like would square up against robert downy in those scenes um and he had like some hidden like not not hidden but like he would

Starting point is 00:23:26 sneak they would sneak in some like funny one liners from him throughout so yeah very balanced um yeah that this was a blast of a movie with a great genre implementation wonderfully directed and more layers than one wouldn't anticipate when going into this big pretty much spoof movie uh i give it i would give this like a solid 9.5 out of 10 honestly i don't know where i would even get that 0.5 negative from i really i think it was like it felt like five minutes too long was a little redundant at the end to me buy it real fast for me yeah i thought it was a little redundant but then it didn't have like hilarious shit that happened with like getting like oh you're going in the jungle to save ben stiller and then ben stiller oh my god so he's out now he's gonna stay behind then ben stiller is running back uh the bridge blows up uh okay but bensler still like into the helicopter so they got to go to bed stiller on the ground he's right there was just something there where i felt there was being dragged out a little too much and it might have not even

Starting point is 00:24:25 been five minutes it's because they're trying to get that reprisal from the beginning yeah stretch out a little bit but there were still funny moments like though i mean anything to get him throwing the child the child stabbing him and then throwing the child like that's just too funny way too funny um less near thoughts down below on tropic thunder people we'll talk to be soon reject nation jameson mackintosh oh if we were to make a movie starring you. Uh-huh. I think I know exactly what it would be.

Starting point is 00:25:02 It would be you on the toilet. Oh, good. Watching Passion of the Christ on your phone. Yes. And then you turn to the toilet paper. And if you, it is a note that there'll be a bomb that goes off if you get off this toilet. Oh, no.

Starting point is 00:25:22 You're stuck on the toilet. The only way to do it is pay $100,000. dollars for a ransom but the one hundred thousand dollars is also your toilet paper roll that is a is a true point so do you wipe your vote with it or do you pay the ransom you pay you have to pay the ransom because that's what a patriot would do oh that's what a patriot would do yeah yeah and also you're in blackface the whole time very true i mean this is what a maverick would you yes yes and you so it's giving me goosebumps just to think about it.

Starting point is 00:25:57 Are we thinking, are we doing the same bit? Because I mixed, I mixed up Ben Stiller with Mel Gibson's Maverick, and I was like, okay, so we got to, this is Mel Gibson movies. All right, all right. Back to one, everybody. You know what women want. You're a, you know, a conspiracy

Starting point is 00:26:14 theory, and you're the road warrior. Just like Tropic Thunder, we have failed to execute a movie. I'm Danny McBride. That's too bad. James and I'm sorry we'll just put you in a fat suit and it'll be funny because you're in a fat suit

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The Reel Rejects - TROPIC THUNDER (2008) IS FREAKIN' HYSTERICAL!! MOVIE REVIEW!!

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