I missed David Poland’s review of “Tropic Thunder,” which was published on Monday. Predictably, it’s a negative assessment. Poland hasn’t liked anything this summer beyond “Speed Racer” and “hancock” (which might say it all right there), but as usual, he goes to great lengths to make his point.
The only real awards possibilities for the film have seemingly been for Robert Downey Jr., who gets the most laughs out of the trailers we’ve seen and has even earned some “O” word whispers in some quarters. But Poland seems to think the opportunity was wasted:
Even Downey, who is so game and always looking for subtle touches, is stuck playing one note for much of the film. You know the note… it’s in every ad. He’s a white guy in black face. Okay… funny idea. But is it really funny for more than two acts of a movie? Isn’t the idea of writing such an inherently flawed character to push that character’s buttons in different and interesting ways through the entire film? Isn’t having an actor of Downey’s quality an opportunity to do something really interesting? Or are you, as an audience, satisfied by that same joke told 10 different ways?
This, of course, flies in the face of Jeffrey Wells’s recent praise for the film and the performance, declaring Downey “amazing” and the performance an “Oscar-level thing.”
I’ll make up my own mind when I see the film tomorrow night. I think it could go either way and has plenty to do with Ben Stiller’s handling of the material. I’ve found myself a fan of his work behind the camera more often than his work in front of it, but anything with Robert Downey Jr. in it seems to be gold this year, so we’ll see.
Read the rest of Poland’s “Tropic Thunder” review here.
In a separate take, John Campea of The Movie Blog had this to say on Downey’s portrayal out of Comic-Con:
We all expected Robert Downey Jr. would knock it out of the park, and he doesn’t disappoint. He’s always working the character so much that even the most mundane lines that come out of his mouth make you smile. When he switches from “black” to Australian it’s pure gold.
Perhaps Poland will be in the minority on this.
Comments
4 responses to “A mark against Robert Downey Jr. in ‘Thunder’”
Heath Ledger will win, but Downey, Jr., looks fantastic. It’s either this performance or his in “Iron Man” that could slip into the Oscars, I think (one of them should be nominated).
And I’ve never liked David Poland, for the record. “Speed Racer” was simply awful, and “Hancock” was a big disappointment (for me). And I will never forgive him for not liking “The Dark Knight”.
Poland loves to try and create news. I like the guy for it. BUt he more times than not sticks his foot in his mouth.
To be fair, Poland did like The Dark Knight. He even said that only Wall E is a better film from a major studio so far in 2008. He just wasn’t over the moon about it.
[…] she has a point on the former, and it comes into focus when she addresses the Best Supporting Actor rumblings building around Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in “Tropic Thunder.” Stanley, for […]