2008 Summer Arts Preview

Opens August 15

If you were wondering whether anyone but Judd Apatow could make a pedigreed R-rated comedy in these PG-13 days, wonder no more. Tropic Thunder looks as if it'll be smart, rude and funnnn-ny. It's about a bunch of mixed-up actors who somehow stumble out of their war-movie set and into a real war. The script is by Ben Stiller, actor Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen (who has worked on Mike Judge projects from Beavis & Butt-head through King of the Hill and Idiocracy). From the fake trailers that open Tropic Thunder, we learn that Stiller is supposed to be a Stallonean action star; that Jack Black is a comedian who has played all the roles in a fat-family movie franchise (we're guessing Eddie Murphy); and that Robert Downey Jr., is an ultra-serious actor (gosh, could it be Daniel Day-Lewis?) who never breaks character, even if he's playing a black guy. There’s also a Joel Silver-type producer, impersonated by a Hollywood legend whose identity in the movie was meant to be a secret — and we'd never tell, except to hint that his name rhymes with Mom Screws. Traditionally, inside-movie movies don't click with the mass audience. But this one, which opens in the dog days of August, could be the exception. Already it has the viral boys drooling on their keyboards. Wait a minute — this couldn’t be another Snakes on a Plane fanboy scam, could it?