Tropic Thunder is exactly what was forecast.

You may remember the kid on the left in the glasses as a loser friend from knocked up, but I remember him from Almost Famous as the Led Zeppelin superfan kid.


I wasn’t going to blog about this movie because my opinion on it was simple… If you like Ben Stiller movies, and you laughed at the trailer, then you will like this movie. If you loathe Ben Stiller and think the trailer is stupid, then you will hate it. This movie is simple, kind of like Zoolander, except I liked Zoolander more. I laughed, don’t get me wrong, but it was like eating Cheerios. No one eats a bowl of Cheerios and raves that it was amazing, you just are happy to have a tasty breakfast. (Or Dinner, I won’t limit Cheerios to a single meal)

One surprise was the performance of Tom Cruise. I use to be a huge fan of Cruise, but in the last 3 years since he jumped on Oprah’s couch he’s become more and more repulsive. I walked out of the theater talking more about him than the other funny moments. It was a perfect move by Cruise; not taking himself too seriously. Only time will tell if this is a step in the right direction, or a hiccup in his pursuit of crazy. The other cameos in this movie were great. The actors making fun of the industry was the best part of this little film.

So, why are you writing a blog about this movie then? I decided to write this after reading Entertainment Weekly’s review of the film. Lisa Schwarzbaum gave this film an “A” rating. Really? An “A” for this simple little movie? Movies like Juno and No Country for Old Men didn’t earn that high of a rating according to Schwarzbaum. Is this lady just giving A’s away? My friend Danny, a high school teacher, use to lament students expectation of earning A’s because that was like a pass. Just because parents and colleges expect A’s doesn’t mean Danny would give them out for a performance that was par for the course. “C” means you hit the marks and did what was expected.

I try and rate things with that same integrity. I am calling Schwarzbaum’s ‘integrity’ into question here. I think she got it just plain wrong. Most of the time I agree with EW, but they got it wrong here. It’d be generous to give it a “B”, it was not excellent, it was Cheerios.