BOTTOM LINE: A very strange parody of the film industry that would have worked if it was actually funny, but unfortunately for the most part, it's not. There are a few highlights though, namely a hilarious Robert Downey Jr. and an equally brilliant, if unrecogniseable Tom Cruise.

THE GOOD: Ben Stiller has decided to do inside baseball on the film industry with "Tropic Thunder" and in certain aspects of this film, he has captured the ridiculous nature of the industry through some nice caricatures and dialogue. The film opens with three fake previews, introducing the three main actors who headline the film. The best is Robert Downey Jr's trailer where he plays a monk who discovers his gay longings for another man played hilariously by Tobey Maguire. From there, we're thrown in to the Vietnam jungles where the stellar cast of Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr) are trying to make a war picture but aren't getting very far because they can't find their motivation. Enter Les Grossman (an unrecogniseable Tom Cruise), the financier of the film who threatens the director with all kinds of anguish if he can't get the film back on track. Not knowing what to do, the director has a chat with the man who wrote the book the film is based on, Four Leaf Teyback (played by a straight Nick Nolte). Together, they hatch a plan to drop the cast in to the real jungle with real ammunition and bombs so they can be toughened up. The plan goes pear-shaped when the director steps on a land mine and the cast end up in the hands of a drug cartel led by a mean 10-year old kid (yes, you read that right). Now, the actors are in a real war movie and they have to 'find it' to make it out alive. It's a unique take for a parody, and quite cleverly allows for a certain amount of action which you might not normally expect in a movie like this. However, the absolute best things in this film are Robert Downey Jr and Tom Cruise. The former plays an Australian actor who had a skin pigment transplant to become an African American for his latest role, and the latter plays a foul-mouthed egomaniacal studio boss without a conscience. Downey has a pitch-perfect accent, both African-American and Australian, and somehow also manages to instil the satire that playing such a ridiculous character requires. Almost every time he's on screen it's funny. Tom Cruise also deserves a lot of credit. He looks ugly in this film, but he's funny and almost unrecogniseable. There has been no press on Cruise being in this film and it works to the film's advantage as discovering him in the film is quite entertaining, particularly his opening scene. Nick Nolte is the straight guy in the film and does a great job, and Matthew McConaughey is pretty good as Speedman's Hollywood agent. "Tropic Thunder" scores points for trying something different with this genre.

THE BAD: Being a parody you would expect it to be funny. Aside from a few moments here and there (mainly whenever Robert Downey Jr or Tom Cruise are on screen), the film isn't that funny and would have been totally boring if the action elements weren't thrown in at well timed moments to jar our attention back in to the film. "Tropic Thunder" would have worked better if Stiller had made it smart instead of silly. Instead of witty dialogue, we get gratuitous action scenes and ridiculous characters and dialogue. I already mentioned that the chief villain of the piece is a 10-year old kid. Stiller himself isn't that much better, trying to do a self-referential Rambo impersonation but ultimately only has a series of dumb looks on his face. The silliness ultimately undermines how much you can get in to the movie; the silliness would work for a younger audience but the problem is the gratuitous violence on display would prohibit that younger audience from seeing the film. I felt in the end that the film was a wasted opportunity to do something truly original. The idea was there, the cast was there, but the final script and direction were not.