Work From Home Couple

Because I work from home, as does my wife, I’m sure you’re interested in knowing my thoughts on current DVD releases. What? You’re not? Surely, you’re joking.

My wife and I are home a lot. We have a 15-month-old child who goes to bed at 7 p.m. It’s not like we’re going anywhere once that happens. So we watch a lot of movies and television series on DVD thanks to our trusty Neftlix account. So I know movies. (Or at least I like to think I do.)

And here’s another thing I know: Ben Still isn’t that funny anymore. And he plays the same lunk-headed character too much. I also know that his latest movie, the big summer comedy Tropic Thunder isn’t funny, either. It is loud. It is busy. It is bloody in scenes. But it’s just not funny.

I will give the movie credit for one funny bit. Robert Downey Jr., one of our best actors, if you ask me, stars as a pompous Academy Award-winning Australian actor. He wins the part of the main African-American character in the fake movie that forms the basis of Tropic Thunder’s story. Of course, Downey Jr.’s not African-American. In the film, his character undergoes a medical procedure that darkens his skin’s pigmentation. He also stays in character throughout the movie, constantly spouting “y’alls” in what he mistakenly thinks is a terrific interpretation of how African-American characters talk. A real African-American actor in the film is constantly annoyed by Downey’s antics, and their scenes together are outstanding, and really funny.

The rest of the film? Boring. Jack Black, who’s usually quite funny, is a complete waste here. He’s not important to the story and doesn’t even have any funny lines, unless you consider him describing how he would give one of the characters a blowjob funny stuff. (It could have been, I suppose, but it’s not in this movie.)

Tom Cruise turns in an interesting performance as a horrid Hollywood studio head, all bald head and bear-rug-furry arms. But he’s not on screen enough. And Ben Stiller, of course, goes through the movie making his usual dumb monkey faces. It seems like his Zoolander character escaped for that movie and made it to the jungles of Laos.

To sum up: Melt your Tropic Thunder discs and seek out a comedy that’s actually funny. The 40-year-old Virgin fits that bill. This loud, annoying movie does not.

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