This latest summer comedy is directed by Ben Stiller - his first movie since Zoolander (2001), and is written by Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen.

The plot: A big-budget war movie with star-actors is being cancelled by the studio. Desperate to save the movie and turn it into a biggest baddest war movie ever made, director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) takes suggestion of a burnout screen writer Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) to add more realism to the movie by sending his crew into Vietnam and setting up hidden cameras in the jungle. The all-star cast gets to work, but they are so self-involved they don’t recognize the danger when local poppy growers mistake them for narcs and capture them.

The good: Fresh from the Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. definitely stole the show. His character, an action movie star and 5-time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus is hilarious. Lazarus is all about doing an excellent job. He even gets a skin pigmentation altering procedure to look like an Australian Aborigine and he stays in character through the movie and even off-camera to the point that his co-stars become annoyed with it. Who are his co-stars? The opening sequence of the movie introduces and opens the characters immediately by showing trailers of the movies they starred in. There’s Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), famous for his fart jokes movie franchise where he plays all characters - a possible reference to Eddie Murphy’s Nutty Professor: The Klumps or Norbit. Jeff Portnoy is in the middle of withdrawal from heroine addiction and in the movie he asks his friends to tie him to the tree and then begs them to untie him. The other famous star is Alpa Chino (say it!) played by Brandon T. Jackson. He banks on his popularity by selling his own energy drink called “Booty Sweat”. The third hero is Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) - an egoistic and narcissistic actor of the mindless Scorcher action franchise who was famous for playing a retarded farmer who thought his animals understand when he talks to them. His act is painfully similar to Forest Gump. When the crew is dropped off in the jungle and the director disappears after Cody-the pyrotechnician (Danny Mc. Bride of Pineapple Express) makes a mistake, it’s Tugg Speedman who takes production of the movie into his hands. The disappearance of the director was one of the funniest parts of the movie: the audience could see it coming, but the execution was so perfectly timed it’s so memorable!

In addition, Tom Cruise is hysterically funny as Les Grossman, a cynical movie studio executive/producer who doesn’t care if actors live or die - it’s all about profit for him. He can find a way to make money out of any situation.

Nick Nolte gets his character just right. He brings the stereotype of a burnout Vietnam war junkie to another level. Well,, that’s the spirit of this whole movie - how far can a stereotype be taken that it’s funny and ridiculous.

This movie is funny thanks to hilarious action and dialogs. This summer has offered a great variety of new entertaining movies being released one after another, and release of Tropic Thunder right after “Pineapple Express” is the proof. This is not a masterpiece, but it will make you laugh out-loud if you can bare with the gory jokes (some ladies could not), and if you didn’t see it in the theater, get it on video.

The bad: Language, gore and gross-out jokes are typical Ben Stiller’s tools. Some may find this movie offensive to so many different groups, including mentally challenged and some ethnic minorities, but it’s still a funny comedy - it’s not any worse a humor then one delivered by stand up comedians at Comedy Central. Matthew McConaughey has too small a role as Tugg’s agent.

The summary: silly and pretty gross at times, but entertaining. It will make you laugh so hard you’ll fall off your chair - if you are into this kind of jokes.

The cast: Kirk Lazarus - Robert Downey Jr. | Jeff Portnoy - Jack Black | Kevin Sandusky - Jay Baruchel | Alpa Chino - Brandon T. Jackson | Tugg Speedman - Ben Stiller | Damien Cockburn - Steve Coogan | Cody - Danny R. McBride | Four Leaf Tayback - Nick Nolte | Rick Peck - Matthew McConaughey | Tran - Brandon Soo Hoo | Les Grossman - Tom Cruise

The crew: Director - Ben Stiller | Story - Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux | Screenplay - Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen | Producers - Ben Stiller, Eric McLeod, Matt Eppedio, Stuart Cornfeld, Patrick Esposito | Original Music - Theodore Shapiro | Photography - John Toll | DreamWorks SKG

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After Seth Rogen and his buddy Evan Goldberg wrote the script for Superbad when they were 15 years old, they also were itching to write a script for an action movie, but with a twist. Nobody has done this before: if an action movie married a stoner comedy and they had a child, and that child married a buddy comedy and they had a baby, then this baby would be this movie.

The plot: Dale Denton (Seth Rogen - Kung Fu Panda, Horton Hears The Who!, Superbad, Knocked Up etc.) was a lazy clerk who’s job was to delivered court papers. He was also a stoner. One day he witnessed a murder by a dirty cop and a drug lord and, in panic, dropped the roach at the scene. A lot of people drop roaches, right? But the problem is the roach has a rare and exclusive strain of marijuana called Pineapple Express. Now Dale has to visit his dealer Saul (James Franco - Spider-Man I-III, In The Valley Of Elah) to find out if his roach can be traced back to him. Both end up on the run and their weed-induced paranoia helps them to stay alive.

The good: Indeed, this has never been done before - quite in this way, not counting Sean of the Dead - Rogen and Goldberg cross the buddy/stoner comedy with an action movie. It’s a mockery of action movie where the rescue always comes at the last moment, the good guys never are quite killed by the bad guys and guns just happen to lay around when you need one. Rogen wrote the script based on his own experience smoking weed in his teenage years, and a shtick with cross-joint is based on reality. Laughs are delivered non-stop throughout the movie. Great soundtrack. Good acting. Dialogs are hilarious. Gary Cole was a great villain with Rosie Perez as his side-kick hitting it just right. In the stoner movie category, it’s better then Cheech and Chong’s “Up In Smoke” and “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle”, though many may disagree or not like this movie at all for rude, crude and immature guy humor,  gore and slapstick action - Seth Rogen’s and Apatow’s calling card.

The bad: Not sure if this movie will help or hurt the supporters of legalizing Marijuana. It is funny and the plot is ridiculous, but quite forgettable - Superbad and Knocked Up were funnier. Might watch it again on DVD in a year or so.

The summary: highly entertaining but not this year’s Superbad. A different movie for director David Gordon Green too.

Cast: Dale Denton - Seth Rogen | Saul Silver - James Franco | Ted Jones - Gary Cole | Budlofsky - Kevin Corrigan | Carol/Female Cop - Rosie Perez | Angie Anderson - Amber Heard | Red - Denny McBride | Cheung - Dana Lee | Robert - Ed Begley Jr.

Credits: Director - David Gordon Green | Writers - Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg | Story by Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg | Producers - Judd Apatow, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, Shauna Robertson, Dara Weintraub | Original Music - Graeme Revell | Photography - Tom Orr | Apatow Productions | Columbia Pictures | Relativity Media

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Brendan Fraser returns to movie theaters for another adventure as intrepid explorer Rick O’Connell.

The plot: Rick and Eve O’Connell spend the fortune they earned in the past two adventures in after-war England in a huge mansion. Both of them pretend that they are quite happy with this lifestyle since they try to stay true to their promise to stay out of adventure business, but inside they are itching for another one - Rick wants to prove he’s still got it after that many years, and Evelyn needs something to write a new novel about. The excuse to go on a trip soon presents itself when CIA offers Rick and Eve to secretly deliver a preceous artifact to China, where their Son Alex, a college-dropout archeologist, discovered the location of the tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Through a series of unfortunate events and betrayal of friends, the evil Emperor awakes from his 2,000 year old slumber to raise an army of the undead that would take over the world, unless Rick, Eve, Alex, Jonathan and a young Chinese witch stop them.

The good: Michelle Yeoh was as beautiful as ever in the role of 2,000 year old witch who cast a spell on the evil emperor and his armies. Good action sequences, although 90% of them were CGI. Probably the best sequence in the whole movie was shot at the cabaret that Eve’s brother Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah) was spending his fortune on and owned in Shanghai (I think): it was stylish and really conveyed the sense of time. Very energetic. 40-year old Brendan Fraser is in great physical shape, which induced a shirtless shot. nice musical score.

The bad: Basically the premise of this movie is another adventure for O’Connell family, but now a much tougher mummy that shifts shapes and has much more powerful magic then the mummy Rick killed twice in the prequels, and also to show how a more modern world’s weapons stand up against fragile mummies of evil emperor’s soldiers. The latter task has not quite succeeded - though CGI fights of the mummy armies were entertaining and shooting them from an aircraft seems like a lot of fun, but why not try to shoot them from a tank or with a cannon as well? The whole adventure in the Himalayas was ridiculous - you’ll see. Rachel Weizs replaced by Maria Bello and her acting was not as good. Alex lost his English accent and sounds like American now. Stereotypical to the point of ridiculousness. The snow men had no genitalia, which was probably a requirement to get the PG-13 rating. The only real action sequence with stunts was when the witch was fighting the emperor and it lasted no more then 2 minutes. The rest of fight sequences were mostly among the CGI armies of mummies. The jokes would be funny if they weren’t repeated several times before in the two previous Mummy movies. The alleged war past of Evelyn and Rick as intelligence officers was fast-forwarded through and reminded the alleged CIA past of Indiana Jones in the Crystal Skull quest. Really bad acting by Isabella Leong (as Lin) and Luke Ford (as Alex O’Connell) - an unconvincing action-hero sidekick. It’s a waste of everyone’s talent, especially Jet Li’s: all he was doing is wave his sword while ordering mummies to do stuff for him; everything else was CGI. Seemed like none of the actors actually wanted to be in it and they detested the dialogs.

The summary: this is a movie for kids. Thrilling enough for adults, but nevertheless a solid entertainment for its action sequences, even though the plot is full of holes and acting with exception of Michelle Yeoh’s is unconvincing. Doesn’t live up to the first part, but better then Scorpion King.

The cast: Rick O’Connell - Brendan Fraser | Emperor Han - Jet Li | Evelyn O’Connell - Maria Bello | Jonathan Carnahan - John Hannah | Zi Juan - Michelle Yeoh | Alex O’Connel - Luke Ford | Lin - Isabella Leong | General Yang - Anthony Wong Chau-Sang | Ming Guo - Russell Wong | Mad Dog Maguire - Liam Cunningham

The credits: Director - Rob Cohen | Screenplay - Alfred Gough, Miles Millar | Producers - Chris Brigham, Sean Daniel, Bob Ducsay, James Jacks, Josette Perrotta, Marc Pitre, Stephen Sommers | Original Musical Score - Randy Edelman | Cinematography - Simon Duggan | Universal Pictures | Relativity Media

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