We got there a bit early, so after getting our tickets, popped into Cafe Primo for a bite to eat.
I'm not really a Cafe Primo fan. A while back you'd put up with the annoying ads and average food because at least it was cheap. Now they've put their prices up which is annoying. Because as far as I can tell they haven't improved quality or service anywhere. Anyway didn't really have a choice, since we only had 40 minutes, and they are usually quick at least. I get anxious when I'm waiting for my dinner with a movie start time quickly approaching.
I had what was basically a meatlovers pizza with chicken. It was a little dry. In hindsight, some pineapple would have helped. I also had a 600ml bottle of Coke Zero, which I think costs roughly the same as the 250ml glass bottles, which doesn't make much sense.
So onto the movie . . . it started with a few fake trailers for movies that the actors in the film were in. We then jump straight into the action, with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr all playing actors in a war movie that is "in it's fifth day of production and already a month behind schedule". Desperate to get his actors to embrace their roles, the director decides to dump them all in the middle of the jungle and stage the action around them, so they think they've actually stumbled into a war zone, and then capture it all on hidden cameras.
Of course, after dropping them off, the director steps on an actual land mine (which everyone apart from Downey Jr thinks is a set up), and the group are left on their own. They wander into an area used for heroin production, and Stiller is kidnapped by a local gang. Luckily they are fans of his movie "Simple Jack", a story about a retarded farmboy, and let him live, if he performs the movie live in its entireity each day. His castmates arrive to save him (despite the fact that their guns are just filled with blanks) and although Stiller isn't sure he wants to leave, they end up busting out together.
All in all, not a bad film. It had some flat points, although some good scenes, like the one where Robert Downey Jr explained to Ben that you never win an Oscar going "full retard" . . .
Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Count toothpicks to your cards. Autistic, sure. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, "Being There." Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, "I Am Sam." Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed...
Tom Cruise was good as the overweight and balding studio head, but to be honest, I think I'd heard this hyped up to much, would have been better if it was a surprise.
All in all not a bad movie, not a classic but worth a look if you want something lighthearted.
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