Title: Tropic Thunder
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Rating: Unrated
SRP: $39.98 (Blu-ray)

FEATURE: A+
I first saw Tropic Thunder in San Diego during Comic-con International with my PCS compatriot Howard Brown. Roughly fifteen seconds into the movie, we were already reduced to laughing so hard there were tears streaming down our face. When I had to recommend the movie to skeptical friends, I told them that the first ten minutes was funnier than any comedy they’d seen in the past two years, and it was all uphill from there. Every single person I recommended it to came back to me and said “You were right.”

Tropic Thunder’s high concept is an easy and familiar one: a director wants to make the greatest war movie ever and runs into problems. What makes it special is that director’s cast. Ben Stiller’s Tugg Speedman is an action movie star who needs to reignite his career, or else. Jack Black’s Jeff Portnoy needs a role lacking in fart jokes in order to earn some respect. Robert Downey Jr’s Kirk Lazarus is an Academy Award-winner looking for another statue. Brandon Jackson’s Alpa Chino is a rapper turned actor, with all the drama and swagger that entails. Jay Baruchel plays the ostensible straight man of the crew as Kevin Sandusky, a new actor eager for a good role.

The director drags his cast out to the deep jungle of Vietnam in order to both teach them a lesson in not being amazing crybabies and to get some excellent guerilla footage. Things go wrong pretty much immediately, and the actors have to band together in order get back to safety.

Where Tropic Thunder shines isn’t in its plot, which works, but is fairly predictable. It’s in the character exchanges. Four-fifths of the main cast are completely self-absorbed and caught up in their own problems or hang-ups. The other fifth is just desperate to be liked.

The comedy comes from the interactions between all of them. Jay Baruchel’s endless monologues about movie history minutia punctuate a couple of scenes, and seal him as the guy who is trying really, really hard to be a friend to everyone and anyone. Jack Black’s dope addiction provides a lot of fun pratfalls and screwed-up scenes for our enjoyment. Ben Stiller’s desperate action moviestar is so fraught with insecurity and lonelines that just looking at him is funny.

One thing I loved that Tropic Thunder isn’t afraid to do is to let a scene sit for a moment. There are reaction shots to funny scenes that just add to the comedy. Characters pull faces, especially Jay Baruchel, that tell you exactly what they’re thinking, but also remind you exactly how ridiculous the cast is.

I was hard pressed to find just one thing I loved the most out of the movie. The leader of the bad guys of the film is well-acted, funny, and gets a few amazing shots, particularly when he pulls out an RPG. Jay Baruchel’s rookie actor was excellent. Alpa Chino was fun and appropriately over the top. Ben Stiller was great.

One of my favorite things, but not my most favorite, is the interaction between Robert Downey Jr and Brandon Jackson. Their relationship is obviously going to be racially tinged, and no holds are barred. What sells it is Downey’s completely earnest performance. He isn’t insulting or pandering. He’s playing his role, which is a pompous award-winning Australian actor’s idea of what a ’60s era black sergeant was like. It burns Alpa Chino, and they have it out more than once.

Basically, the movie is hilarious. It’s hard to pin down one exact reason why, because the entire feature is so solid. I’ve seen it three times at this point, and I still laughed at jokes I knew were coming.

PRESENTATION: A
What’s great about the Blu-ray menus is that they are, at first glance, just like the menus you’d see on a real war movie. You see flashes of the film on a dark background, sparse menus, and very pared down design. Once you’ve seen the movie, you will understand the absurdity of the situation, but the menus are extremely fun. They aren’t layered with a lot of excess animation or anything to slow down hopping into the movie. The video that plays during the menus is surprisingly lengthy, as well, which just shows the care that went into the planning.

The Blu-ray case is right out of the past, too. Other than a note that it’s a Director’s Cut, the case looks like a legit war movie. There’s a grinning skull as part of a military-ish patch design, and it all looks very proper and blockbuster-y. There’s just the barest hint of the comedy that lies within.

The submenus are fast to activate and easy to navigate, which is always a plus. I never ran into that annoying situation where my cursor is at one point on the screen and I can’t figure out how to get it where it needs to be.

Tropic Thunder is just an attractive package from the box art down to the menus.

EXTRAS: A+
Tropic Thunder’s director’s cut has some 20-odd extra minutes, so I kept an eye out for them. Other than one added scene, which runs about five minutes long, early in the film, the rest of the edits come in the form of extending already existing scenes. You get more lines, more room to breathe, and more jokes.

Tropic Thunder is a fast-moving movie, so I didn’t really notice the extended time. While the Director’s Cut is certainly watchable, I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s a better movie than the theatrical cut, but they do provide slightly different experiences. If you’ve seen Tropic Thunder at all, the Director’s Cut is well worth it, if only for the second Jay Baruchel rant.

There are an obscene amount of extras that round out the Blu-ray disc. There are two separate commentaries, one for the cast and one for the crew, and that’s just the beginning. From there, you can choose to watch vignettes on each major character, or perhaps a make-up test for Tom Cruise.

There’s a bit called 8 Minutes of Hell, which are Robert Downey Jr and Ben Stiller acting out a scene from late in the movie. The majority of the scene was improvised and the final cut was perhaps a minute long. They do the scene over and over, with changes each time. Downey regularly cracks up Stiller, forcing them to do it all over from the top.

There’s a long mockumentary called Rain of Madness included on the disc, as well. It’s all filmed in-character and as if the movie were real. It isn’t as laugh out loud funny as the main feature, but it’s a different kind of comedy. It’s more subdued and irony based than Tropic Thunder itself.

There’s enough extra content here to keep you busy for a couple of days at least, and that’s not even counting the commentary. As far as being worthy of a Blu-ray disc goes, Tropic Thunder is top notch. Some of the extras are worth the price of admission alone, and getting all of them along with the film is a steal.

OVERALL: A+
Tropic Thunder is my pick for comedy of the year. Nothing else even came close to making me laugh as long or hard as Tropic Thunder did. I’d even go so far as to place it in the top three films of the year, after only Dark Knight and Iron Man.

It simply hits on all cylinders. The straightforward slapstick comedy is played completely straight, the grossout comedy delightlfully revels in itself, the offensive comedy is played so amazingly straight that you have to laugh, and the more subtle comedy will keep a grin on your face for those brief moments when you aren’t laughing outright. In a word, Tropic Thunder is excellent.