Some of Hollywood's best known actors are cast in the most expensive war movie ever produced. But after filming commences the studio executive decides that everything is not going as planned and he wants to shut the production down. The director has a better idea. To get the realism the picture needs he sends the pampered actors out into the real Vietnamese jungle where he intends to surprise them with explosions and stuntmen as they make their way back to civilisation. However things don't go to plan and the actors head off in the wrong direction, and when they stumble across a drug baron and his workers, the actors think it's all part of the movie. Can they be rescued before they get themselves into trouble...?

Tropic Thunder is an action adventure comedy written and directed by Ben Stiller. In the extras on this DVD Stiller explains that he originally got the idea for the film while he was working on Empire of the Sun (1987). Movies like Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) were bringing the Vietnam story back to the big screen and Stiller thought that a spoof on this would be interesting. And probably in the late '80s / early '90s it would have been a welcome breath of fresh air. Sadly, 20 years on, it just seems a little out of date.

The movie is, for the most part, funny and has an interesting storyline. However, it's only the first act that feels well polished - the rest of the movie feeling like a collection of thrown together ideas. It's here that you realise that this is really only a 30 minute plot with a whole heap of padding - even more so in this Director's Cut edition.

Extras include two audio commentaries (one with the three main cast, the other with the filmmakers. To be honest though, neither actually offered anything that interesting. Robert Downey, Jr., as he promised in the movie, stays in character the entire time... and boy, does that get old quickly. It was interesting to hear that the sequence where the bug flies at Stiller was a happy accident. I've no idea what the theatrical version of the movie was like, but Stiller keeps pointing out scene after scene from the DVD cut that wasn't in the original movie).

Disc two includes Before the Thunder (4 min, 51 sec look at the origin of the movie); The Hot LZ (6 min, 25 sec behind the scenes which explains that very little CGI was used as they wanted to make the movie look like an '80s Vietnam movie); Blowing Sh*t Up (6 min, 17 sec look at the work of the special effects); Designing the Thunder (7 min, 30 sec look at the creation of the sets); The Cast of Tropic Thunder (22 min, 10 sec look at the main actors - can be played as a whole or for each actor's segment); Rain of Madness (30 min spoof behind the scenes documentary - one of the three must watch extras - incredibly funny with loads of additional footage. I loved the additional Simple Jack footage, and the history of the main actors - especially Portnoy's Heatvision and Jack TV show); Dispatches from the Edge of Madness (23 min, 04 sec mini video diaries - which looks like they were Internet diaries to whet the taste of fans before the movie came out. This is the second featurette that's worth watching); Deleted Scenes / Extended Sequences / Alternate Ending (with introduction and commentary with Stiller and editor Greg Hayden); Make-up Test with Tom Cruise (1 min, 36 sec with intro from Stiller and Hayden); MTV Movie Awards - Tropic Thunder (4 min, 05 sec. This is the last must see extra and has Stiller, Black, and Downey Jr. making a viral ad for the movie); Full Mags (31 min, 57 sec raw footage); and Video Rehearsals (3 min, 04 sec look at rehearsals of a handful of scenes).

The review discs we received seemed to contain all of the content that is spread over the three-disc release. The only thing we didn't get was the digital copy of the film that can be played on iPod or other portable media devices.

I'm also not really sure how they've managed to justify losing four minutes on the Blu-ray release - as according to the press release this is what's happened. It's another case of ripping off the consumers I'm afraid. All of the content would easily have fitted onto a single disc Blu-ray disc but Paramount are insistent that we need two. On balance, I'd shun the Blu-ray release and instead purchase the single disc DVD edition.

While this is a fun movie, Stiller originally conceived the idea in the late '80s- it does feel a little out of date now as it's really parodying movies that a lot of today's cinema goers won't have seen.

At the end of the day the movie is amusing, but I personally felt that the Director's Cut edition of the film dragged on a little too much. The theatrical edition is probably more enjoyable to be honest. Sadly we're not given the option of seeing that.

7

Darren Rea