Downey wows in Tropic Thunder

This is the way the summer ends.
Not with a bang, with some thunder.

Salon, Stephanie Zacharek

“Tropic Thunder” is ridiculous and deeply enjoyable, but it also flashes a mercilessly polished mirror at the “prestige” products that the movie business so glibly feeds us in order to reflect glory back on itself.

Newsweek, David Ansen

“Tropic Thunder” is the funniest movie of the summer‚Äîso funny, in fact, that you start laughing before the film itself has begun.

Rolling Stone, Peter Travers

Think of all the ways you can hurt yourself laughing, as in fall down, split your sides, bust a gut, blow your mind. You get it all in Tropic Thunder, a knockout of a comedy that keeps you laughing constantly. It’s also killer smart, lacing combustible action with explosive gags.

If there’s any question about Tropic of Thunder’s best shot at a nomination, you’ll find the answer after the cut.

Roger Ebert: All but stealing the show, Robert Downey Jr. is not merely funny but also very good and sometimes even subtle as Kirk Lazarus, an Australian actor who has won five Oscars.

Newsweek: Downey is astonishing: he’s so deep into this double role that when the characters’ ghetto accent occasionally falters, it slips into an Aussie accent.

USA Today: Downey is absurdly funny.

Salon: I don’t think I’ve enjoyed any single performance this year as much as the one [Downey] gives here — not because it’s, heaven forbid, prestigious, but because its boldness is so go-for-broke delightful.

Rolling Stone: Downey is so off-the-charts hilarious that you want to stand up and cheer.

EW: In a virtuoso turn from everyone’s favorite redeemed virtuoso, Robert Downey Jr. elegantly dispatches the mishegoss of Method acting with his double-difficulty feat of playing Kirk Lazarus.

Entertainment Weekly, Lisa Schwarzbaum

The point is that with every character, and with every believably outrageous turn of the plot, Stiller brings real insider knowledge of — and compassion for — the big business of Hollywood make-believe to bear on a comedy that is itself a superior factory creation of make-believe.