Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Tom Cruise is back for another go round as Ethan Hunt. It's hard for me to say too much about the family of MI movies (this one being the 4th), because I've only seen the first one, and that was over a decade ago (I remember not liking it that much). As for this one, it was alright. It seemed like a pretty run of the mill Hollywood action film. Supposedly Cruise did all of his own stunts for it, but, I don't really care about any of that stuff, so it doesn't really make me like it anymore. The one thing that I do want to give the MI team credit for, though, is the fact that they went a great route with shutting down the agency, and basically leaving these guys on their own with their wits and whatever else they could come up with. Other than that, I saw it once, it was alright, but I will probably never watch it again.

Valkyrie

With a film like Valkyrie one is left to ask... Why? What is the point of this movie? To give Tom Cruise another "hero" role? It's a historical "thriller", but, the problem remains that it is based on one of the most known events in all of history - Hitler's fate during World War II. So... What exactly is "thrilling" about it?

Tom Cruise plays Claus Von Stauffenberg, a Colonel who has come to the realization that Hitler is completely off of his rocker and is leading the German's to certain failure in this World War. After loosing an arm, an eye, and just generally getting BTFU in Africa, Stauffenberg returns to Germany to take a cush desk job, where he meets several soldiers and politico's who are trying desperately to figure out a way to kill Hitler, and disperse the SS. 

The problem with many of these films is that they are, ultimately, a lot more interesting as History Channel documentary's. At least in that format, their usually only an hour and a half long (commercials pop them up to two), and their not full of pointless and self important "drama" between characters that you never really get to know, and never really get to care about. Valkyrie was like watching paint dry, because, you already know what's going to happen - Hitler doesn't die. It would be like if James Cameron's blockbuster didn't flesh out the relationship between Jack and Rose, and actually tried to keep you in suspense as to whether the Titanic sinks or not. Bryan Singer, probably best known for the first two X-Men films, just didn't pull it off for me. I never felt interested in any of the characters, least of all Stauffenberg, and I found myself not really caring whether they succeeded at their plan or not (even though I knew they wouldn't). I think, on all counts, they just, flat out, made an uninteresting film, which seems to be happening more and more as the World War II film keeps coming back with a vengeance... It's like the Police Academy of genres... Maybe, someday, if we're all lucky, people will just let it go for a while, and, like Western's, we'll get a decent one every couple of years.

Tropic Thunder

Ahh... The beauty of controversy... Especially when the people who are kicking it all up have either not seen the thing their complaining about, or completely missed the point. Tropic Thunder is Ben Stiller's first time back in the directing chair since Zoolander, a film that made fun of the idiocy of the modelling business, and male models, in particular. This time around, Stiller is taking on the idiocy of his own breed - actors and directors. With a well-rounded out cast of talent, including once, and now current, golden boy Robert Downey Jr., Steve Coogan, Danny McBride, Jack Black, and Tom Cruise (in a surprisingly hilarious role), Stiller is out to win your heart for this movie with a lot of R-rated laughs.

The film centers around the production of a war movie, also titled Tropic Thunder, which is being led by an ego-maniacal director, Damien Cockburn (played by Steve Coogan). Cockburn has wrangled up several of Hollywood's leading actor's, including action star Tugg Speedman (Stiller), comedian Jeff Portnoy (Black), and Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), an Australian multi-award winner. After only a week of filming, the production is hopelessly off schedule and over budget, and the actors aren't cooperating with Cockburn's direction. Fearing his eminent dismissal by the head honcho's in charge, Cockburn decides to gather up his leads, along with explosives expert Cody (played perfectly by Danny McBride), and the author of the source novel, Four Leaf Tayback (played by a very grungy Nick Nolte), and head out into the jungle to shoot the film guerilla style, in hopes that this will inspire his actors to deliver the performances he's looking for. Needless to say, things go awry from the moment they touch down, and soon enough, the whole Tropic Thunder crew is living out the movie there supposed to be making.

This film was hilarious! That's it. That's all I can say. One of the funniest things I've seen all year. And, it's sort of like The Dark Knight of comedy's - you feel like you could watch it over and over, and it would never stop being funny. Everybody's performances were great, and Stiller did an amazing job for being co-writer, director, AND actor. I can't imagine what that process must have been like.

The controversy, though, centers around the inclusion of a movie that Tugg Speedman did, as a chance to get an award, called Simple Jack. That "film" was about a mentally challenged individual. Several mental disability advocate groups have taken to saying that the film makes fun of the mentally disabled. I got news for you - It doesn't. If they had SEEN the movie, they would know that. Simple Jack isn't about showing mentally disabled people as stupid or people to be made fun of. It's purpose is to show the idiocy of actors who try desperately to attach themselves to projects like that, because they think it will get them awards. Tugg Speedman is an action star. He doesn't get any real respect, so he goes out and makes a movie like Simple Jack thinking that everyone will love it, and be challenged by it, and they'll heap awards on him. Instead, people laugh at him, and scorn him (until he finds some people who DID like the film, but I won't ruin that for you). It's the same concept that he's using for Downey Jr.'s character Kirk Lazarus. Lazarus lobbies to play the part of the platoon's black leader. There's only one problem, though - he's white. So he goes through an operation to have his pigment darkened so he can play the role. AND THEY HIRE HIM! Why would anybody, in their right minds, hire a white, Australian guy to play the part of a black, southern platoon leader? But that's the point! It's to show the ridiculousness of some of the decisions that Hollywood makes sometimes. And if you watch the movie, and you don't get that fact... Honestly, I'd feel a little sorry for you...

Tropic Thunder is great. It's almost constant laugh's, a great satire of one of the largest entertainment industries in the world, and its done with great skill and loving care. Don't believe the negative hype about this film - go see it.