Tropic Thunder 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

Tropic Thunder 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov October 22, 2022

Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" (2008) arrives on 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include two archival audio commentaries; various archival featurettes with cast and crew interviews; promotional materials; and a lot more. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles. Region-Free.

Never go full retard. This is the only rational statement that emerges from Ben Stiller’s comedy Tropic Thunder. It got me thinking about the last time I saw Stiller playing a character that was not a variation of the dull narcissist Derek Zoolander. I could not remember, and I tried really, really hard. Tower Heist, The Watch, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, While We're Young, every single one of these films features a character that is modeled after Zoolander. Stiller simply changes a few of his attributes and then pushes him into a new environment where he does all the awkward tricks from the old repertoire. Of course, the blank stare is always present. Stiller seems to be under the impression that it is very special and defines him as an actor.

In Tropic Thunder, Stiller plays yet another one of those familiar characters. His name is Tugg Speedman and he is a famous Hollywood star whose career is in decline. (I find this quite ironic, but I could be misjudging a few things). He is part of a group of equally retarded Hollywood stars making an anti-war film channeling messages that are so profound they could bring world peace for generations. The film is set in Vietnam and is a humongous production where a ton of things get blown up and real heroes are made in every other frame. It is shot by Damian Cockburn (Steeve Coogan), a cocky weirdo with an attitude, who has absolutely no idea what he is paid to do. It is why right next to him is a miserable Vietnam vet named Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), who has seen and lived the misery of the war and preserved his memories in a book. The film is a cinematic recreation of the vet’s memories, but as understood by Hollywood. After a lot of things go terribly wrong, Cockburn moves the entire production to a remote area near the Golden Triangle and orders Speedman and his costars to begin behaving like real soldiers so that the hundreds of cameras he has installed with Tayback can capture the authentic footage that will make his film a masterpiece. Unfortunately, shortly after Tayback reveals that he is not a real Vietnam vet, Cockburn steps on a real mine and permanently abandons the shoot. Meanwhile, unaware that their staged adventure in the jungle is no longer being filmed, Speedman and his costars continue moving forward and have an encounter with the area’s biggest drug lord and his goons.

The kindest summation I could provide for Tropic Thunder is to say that it is an astonishingly unfunny comedy and an equally badly made film. It is the kind of film you can give as an example to explain to a child the message of the classic story about the naked emperor and his supposedly very special clothes. I would have been tempted to speculate that Stiller conceived it as a similar witty joke to see how many of his fellow Hollywood stars would not dare to point out the obvious, but he has been making these kinds of films for a very long time.

Large portions of Tropic Thunder are supposed to function as a satire while targeting various classic films and characters. But they are badly scripted and terribly acted and leave the impression that no one could figure out what the proper attitude and tone of this satire should have been. The very colorful language is mismanaged as well, so instead of producing great laughs and atmosphere it just makes the bad look flat-out amateurish and crass.

The only redeeming quality of Tropic Thunder is the great selection of classic rock tunes. As Speedman and his costars go to work, you will hear the likes of Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher”, Ten Years After’s “I’d Love to Change to the World”, Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”, The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”, and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Run Through the Jungle”.

*Kino Lorber’s 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray release offers new presentations of the Theatrical Cut (01:46.44) and Director's Cut of Tropic Thunder (2:01.20), both remastered in 4K at Paramount Pictures under Stiller's supervision. The former is available on 4K Blu-ray, while the latter is available only on Blu-ray.

Tropic Thunder 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber's release of Tropic Thunder is a 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack. The 4K Blu-ray disc is Region-Free. However, The Blu-ray disc is Region-A "locked".

Please note that some of the screencaptures that appear with this article are taken from the 4K Blu-ray and are downscaled to 1080p. Therefore, they do not accurately reflect the quality of the 4K content on the 4K Blu-ray disc, including the actual color values of this content.

Screencaptures #1-20 are from the Director's Cut of Tropic Thunder Blu-ray.
Screencaptures #24-37 are from the Theatrical Cut of Tropic Thunder 4K Blu-ray.

I viewed the Theatrical Cut with Dolby Vision enabled. Shortly after, I did some direct comparisons with the 1080p presentation of the Director's Cut of the film. I thought that both cuts looked very good, with the main discrepancy in visual quality emerging from the Dolby Vision/HDR grade. However, my take on this grade is that it gives the Theatrical Cut a very balanced appearance that is quite similar to what you would get if you view the Director's Cut in 1080p. In some darker areas, for instance, the difference between the 4K and 1080p presentations is almost impossible to detect without looking at simultaneous presentations. During daylight footage, there are expanded ranges of nuances, but they are small and the original cinematography already handles these types of nuances really, really well. What about discrepancies in terms of delineation, clarity, and depth? On my system, both versions of the film look very good. The footage that I tested in 1080p did not reveal serious gaps in quality even in areas where I expected to see shadow definition and other subtle nuances looking more convincing in 4K. Image stability is outstanding. Fluidity is striking in 4K and 1080p. The entire film looks spotless.

Tropic Thunder 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this release: English DTS-HD Mater Audio 5.1 and English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

I viewed the entire film with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. I do not believe that one of these new Dolby Atmos tracks that pop up on recent 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray releases would have handled the original soundtrack of Tropic Thunder better. This film has a lot of action footage with some very serious dynamic intensity and the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track definitely tested the muscles of my audio system. I thought that dynamic contrasts were simply superb. (Test the footage around the 1:35.00 mark). The dialog was very clear, clean, and always stable.

Tropic Thunder 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: All of the archival supplemental features that are listed below were previously made available on this Blu-ray release of Tropic Thunder.

4K BLU-RAY DISC - THEATRICAL CUT OF TROPIC THUNDER

• Commentary - this archival audio commentary was recorded by Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr.

BLU-RAY DISC - DIRECTOR'S CUT OF TROPIC THUNDER

• Commentary - this archival audio commentary was recorded by Ben Stiller, co-producer Stuart Cornfeld, production designer Jeff Mann, co-writer Justin Theroux, cinematographer John Toll, and editor Greg Hayden.

• Featurettes - a collection of archival featurettes on the making of Tropic Thunder featuring clips from interviews with cast and crew members as well as raw footage from the shooting of the film.
  
  1. The Hot Lz (7 min).
  2. Before the Thunder (5 min).
  3. Blowing Shit Up (7 min).
  4. Designing the Thunder (8 min).
  5. The Cast of Tropic Thunder (23 min).
  6. Make-up Test with Tom Cruise (3 min).
  7. Full Mags: Improvisations (14 min). 8. MTV Movie Awards (5 min).

• Deleted Scenes, Extended Scenes, and Alternate Ending -

• Rain of Madness -a mockumentary on the making of Tropic Thunder. In English, not subtitled. (30 min).

• Trailers -
  
  1. Rain of Madness
  2. Tropic Thunder Trailer One
  3. Tropic Thunder Trailer Two

Tropic Thunder 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The wit and great humor that a lot of people have discovered in Tropic Thunder remain elusive to me. To be honest, I consider this film to be a pretty serious endurance test, but this is how I feel about most of Ben Stiller's comedies. If you are a fan of Tropic Thunder, you should plan to pick up Kino Lorber's 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack. It has newly remastered presentations of the film's Theatrical Cut on 4K Blu-ray and Director's Cut on Blu-ray, both approved by Stiller, and they look great. RECOMMENDED only to the fans.