Tropic Thunder

My sister is in town and she wanted to see Tropic Thunder so we went last night. I think that's the first movie I've seen on opening night since Return of the King. But I digress. Actually, can I digress so early in a post? OK, now THAT is a digression. Let's start again.

My sister is in town and she wanted to see Tropic Thunder so we went last night. I liked it--didn't love it but liked it enough to recommend it. There are some very funny scenes in it, and some very quotable lines (the monologue on HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray was priceless, as was the discussion of going "full retard," even if some special interest groups took offense). Robert Downey Jr. is fantastic, even though I only caught maybe half of his dialogue. Boy, between this and Iron Man, quite the summer for him.

The other notable appearance is Tom Cruise. I'll say no more for those who didn't even realize he was in it, other than to say he was hilarious.

I do like movies about making movies -- for instance, The Player, Bowfinger, The Stunt Man, Wag the Dog (OK, that's a movie about fabricating a war but kind of the same idea) -- so I had high expectations for Tropic Thunder. It wasn't quite up to the level of those other movies, but still worth a view.

One more note. It was ironic that there was a monologue about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray in this movie, since the entire time I was looking at the slightly-out-of-focus screen and listening to the muffled audio, and I was thinking "My home theater gives a WAY higher quality experience than this crap."