So I watched this movie a few weeks ago and it made me laugh, and I thought some of it was inspired, it also had a few problems.
First the good stuff:
Stiller's portrayal of "Simple Jack" was hilarious even as it (as intended) made us uncomfortable and angry. It exaggerated and called into question some more sincere efforts to portray people with mental disabilities. "The Other Sister" and "I am Sam" come to mind. It made me think about what the right balance between sensitivity, courage and realism is if you're going to pretend to represent a demographic about which people are touchy.
Downey's character was genius, even better than Stiller's "Simple Jack". It explored the same theme with a different angle: how far can actors go in assuming the identity of a different demographic? In this case it was a racial issue instead of an ability issue, but it's the same question. The tension between Downey and the "Alpa Chino" character played by Brandon Jackson was great - and their interactions never got too preachy even though they didn't discount the gravity of cultural and racial identity.
The fake movie trailers were brilliant.
Some of the problems in my opinion:
#1 the trailers (for the actual movie, not the trailers within the movie) were misleading in showing all the team members to be credulous and fooled into thinking they were still in a movie after they were on their own in the jungle, but it turns out only Stiller's character was that dumb. And yet the other characters follow him for hours - that part didn't make any sense.
#2 The satire was generally within the threshold of my suspension of disbelief but the pre-pubescent boy running a drug cartel didn't work. It was just too much.
#3 The stuff with the agent and the producer was rather unnecessary and the only worthwhile contribution of their subplot was the final moment where the agent saves the helicopter (mirroring the earlier scene in the movie within the movie). Cruise playing a hot headed, soulless, hirsute producer who likes hip hop dancing was mildly amusing but not worth the bloat.
#4 Jack Black was poorly utilized. He can be really funny, but he just wasn't in this film.
[ September 12, 2008, 07:17 PM: Message edited by: scifibum ]
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
I thoguht it was the best comedy I've seen in a long time.
The trailers were hilarious. Stiller and Downey were brilliant. Cruise was fairly amusing. I disagree with you on J.B., though. I actually liked him quite a bit in this.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
My wife and I loved it. We were laughing through the whole movie. I thought it was a brilliant black satire. It was over the top and awesome.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
I'm with you guys, I thought it was hilarious. It's the first movie I've seen more than once in the theater in a long long time.
I agree that Jack Black's shtick was the weakest part of the movie(though i wouldn't say I disliked it), but I think they more than made up for it with his scene tied to the tree.
Robert Downey Jr. was just absolutely brilliant. Seriously. I don't think they'd ever give an Oscar for a role like that, but he deserves it.
The commercial and trailers were priceless as well, the best of them being Satan's Alley I thought. "I've been a bad boy father"
The movie exceeded all my expectations.
Posted by ? (Member # 2319) on :
So I haven't seen this yet, but I just looked it up. I didn't realize how many big names are in this movie. Besides Downey, Black, Stiller and Cruise there is: Matthew McConaughey, Tyra Banks, Jon Voight, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Bateman, Lance Bass, Alicia Silverstone, Mickey Rooney, Tobey McGuire and Kevin Pollak.
That's pretty impressive.
?
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Disagree with #1 and #2, partially agree with #3, agree with #4.
Posted by Xann. (Member # 11482) on :
The funniest part by far was when i realised it was Tom Cruise halfway through the movie. I laughed the hardest when there was no joke though Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
"Satan's Alley"... by far my favorite part in the whole movie.
But I do agree with you on a lot of what you said.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)