Rachel Kaelin 2009-01-06
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
This is a "guy's movie." I am not a guy. I think I watched this in error.
What I really expected was some tongue-in-cheek, war-lite movie. It is sort of war-lite. Sort of. It's not really that funny -- I guess I expected some Zoolander antics. Oh, there's some of that, but mostly, this film falls flat.
With that said, there are some pretty funny things in this movie -- no, very, very funny things in this movie. It's unapologetically offensive throughout. I adored the false trailers preceding the film. When Ben Stiller flings Half-Squat and the child crawls out of the river and crosses his arms, I thought I would die laughing. When Stiller accidentally kills a fluffy sweetheart of the animal kingdom, I laughed a lung up my nose. Tom Cruise's unlikable character was delightfully over the top, and his dancing during the credits was simply fabulous. Robert Downey, Jr., was almost always a winner in every single scene.
Have you noticed something here? You know, the fact I mention only two out of the five "actors" who wander into the jungle? Yeah. Unfortunately, that's ultimately what killed it for me. Most of the characters were SO unlikable and unfunny that I found myself wishing they would all die -- even Stiller was not that enjoyable, and Jack Black was downright awful, and "Alpa Chino's" character was just plain bland. With the exception of Downey and Jay Baruchel (the not-star-powered fellow who played the kid in glasses, Keven Sandusky). Indeed, when Sandusky is hurt, I wanted to throw the DVD case at the screen. He was the only redeemable, nice character in the whole film. (I am not exaggerating. It's true.)
The plot is instantly forgettable and inane, which you would expect for any Stiller comedy; but since the movie takes a more serious turn near the end of the film (every single "big-name actor" has to be true to himself and face the lies he has constructed to keep himself afloat... sigh), the silly plot actually becomes a detriment.
Also, although the humor really hits the mark every now and then, it's just that... "every now and then". Most of the time you're busy hating the characters and hoping they find more land mines.
So in the end, I kept wondering... was this an adventure/lite-war movie attempting to be comedic and light-hearted, or was this a comedy that got a little too serious? Either way, it's a bit of a let-down. It's so dark, and the characters are so awful, that you end up leaving the film feeling trashy.
