Tower Heist

Starring: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck
Directed by: Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour 3”)
Written by: Ted Griffin (“Ocean’s 11”) and Jeff Nathanson  (“Rush Hour 3”)

Can anyone remember the last time comedian Eddie Murphy was actually funny? No, voicing an animated donkey with a love for waffles doesn’t count. I’m talking about Murphy debating boxing greats in “Coming toAmerica” or hustling his way into a swanky suite in “Beverly Hills Cop.” Hell, I’d even take him parodying Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood during his “Saturday Night Live” days if it would help me forget “Norbit.” Wherever you were in the 80s, chances are you were laughing at something Murphy was doing on screen or on stage. Nowadays, you’d probably have better luck being entertained by his older brother Charlie.

If you believe the hype, however, Murphy’s return to glory comes at full force with “Tower Heist,” a comedy crime caper that originally started as an idea in 2005 for Murphy to team up with a host of other black comedians including Chris Tucker, Dave Chappelle and Martin Lawrence. When that overly-ambitious idea fell through, “Tower Heist” became a poor man’s version of “Ocean’s 11” and even enlists “Ocean’s” screenwriter Ted Griffin and supporting actor Casey Affleck. But “Ocean’s” this is not. And while it’s true that Murphy provides his best comedy outing since 1996’s remake of “The Nutty Professor” (I still don’t understand the love for “Bowfinger”), he’s not given as much screen time as you’d think for someone who’s billed so high. Honestly, this is a Ben Stiller movie and Murphy is just coming along for the ride.

Still, the ride has its moments with a solid cast who could easy make an impact off the bench in lieu of George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Matt Damon. In fact, the diverse makeup of characters and personalities is what makes the movie casually fun, at least for the first half of the heist. In the film, a group of hotel employees plot to take back the money they lost in a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), a Wall Street billionaire and tenant in the high-rise. With little experience in thievery, the team, which includes Stiller, Affleck, Michael Peña (“The Lincoln Lawyer”), and Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious”), recruit “Slide” Dalphael (Murphy), a common criminal with the know-how to exact revenge. Also joining in is actor Matthew Broderick (“Election”) as a former Wall Street investor who goes bankrupt because of Shaw’s shady business ethics.

With every cog in place, you’d think this comedy machine, even directed by industry tool Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour 3”), would run a little smoother. While the setup works well enough, the heist itself isn’t very creative or executed on the page very well. What’s left is an amusing team of misfits bumbling around aimlessly in search of a disappointing payoff more ridiculous than a humanitarian award named after Bernie Madoff.

To a lesser extent, this might be a comeback for Murphy, but until he can stand front and center as the leading man he once was, it’s still difficult to forgive him for the last 15 years (“Meet Dave,” “The Adventures of Pluto Nash,” “I Spy”). Hosting the Academy Awards this coming February just might be what he needs to prove “Tower Heist” wasn’t a fluke.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Starring: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson
Directed by: Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”)
Written by: Robert Ben Garant (“Balls of Fury”) and Thomas Lennon (“Herbie Fully Loaded”)

The entire original cast might be back for a second helping, but rehashing the same old jokes from the first outing is a bit overzealous even for Ben Stiller and his myriad of fictional characters in “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.”

In the sequel, Stiller returns as Larry Daley, this time a former museum night watchman who has become a successful CEO of a company that produces a glow-in-the-dark flashlight. When Larry returns to the Museum of Natural History to say a quick hello, however, he learns that all the exhibits that came to life during his first adventure (and ultimately became his friends) are begin replaced with interactive displays and getting shipped off to the Smithsonian Museum for storage.

He also discovers the magic tablet that transforms the exhibits into living, breathing creatures is being pursued by the evil Egyptian pharaoh Kahmunrah played by Hank Azaria (“Along Came Polly”) and his henchmen, which include Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest), Napoleon Bonaparte (Alain Chabat), and Al Capone (Jon Bernthal). New to the fray is also Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) who sticks with Larry during most of the battle and participates in the most interesting scenes of the movie when the two figure out how to jump in and out of famous works of art.

Any clever ideas, however, are easily diluted by lots of bad one-liners, obvious jokes (Yes, Napoleon Bonaparte was short, get over it), and tedious slapstick, which will only appease the youngest viewers. While there are slight highlights like Bill Heder as Gen. Custard, the humor is sketchy at best and gets it wrong most of the time.

Tropic Thunder

Starring: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey  Jr.
Directed by: Ben Stiller (“Reality Bites”)
Written by: Ben Stiller (“Zoolander”), Justin Theroux (debut), and Etan Cohen (TV’s “King of the Hill”)

If you know who director/screenwriter Aaron Seltzer is, then you probably know that his contributions to movie spoofs in the past 12 years have been some of the lamest attempts in the comedy genre. From the superfluous “Scary Movie” sequels to bombs like “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie,” Seltzer has in someway been involved in a major portion of Hollywood’s parody awfulness.

So, when a movie like “Tropic Thunder” comes along and proves that satirical jokes can have a bit more snarky bite behind them, you have to scoop it up and consider it a nice surprise at the end of the summer movie season.

As a director, actor Ben Stiller doesn’t have much proof that he can carry a film like this. Although “Zoolander” had its moments, his only other outings as a filmmaker were with 1996’s “The Cable Guy” and 1994′s “Reality Bites.” Those films, however, didn’t have what Stiller is working with here, namely Robert Downey Jr. Yes, Downey Jr., like he does in his summer blockbuster “Iron Man,” steals the show.

In “Tropic Thunder,” Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, a multi-Academy Award-winning actor, who undergoes a controversial procedure to darken his skin for a role in a Vietnam War movie. The movie within the movie, “Tropic Thunder,” is having major production problems starting with its novice and frustrated director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) and its pre-Madonna cast.

Along with Kirk, the role players on the set are Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a drugged-out comedian who relies on his half-wit humor in Hollywood to earn him a paycheck (hope you’re watching Eddie Murphy), and Tugg Speedman (Stiller), an action movie star whose latest role as a mentally retarded man earns him career-damaging criticism.

When Damien is confronted by Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), the real life war hero portrayed in his film, he decides that the only way he is going to get true performances out of his cast is if he shoots the movie deep in the jungles of southeast Asia, which are overflowing with dangerous drug lords. He’s also getting pressure from film producer Les Grossman (Tom Cruise, who shows his critics that he doesn’t always have to be stone-cold serious; remember “Goldmember?”), who’s demanding the crew finish the big-budget war epic without bankrupting the studio.

When Downey Jr., who is downright entertaining, is on screen, is when “Tropic Thunder” is its best. As a mixed bag of exaggerated comedy and action, I’d recommend “Pineapple Express” before this. Still, everyone involved in “Tropic Thunder” is never afraid to poke fun at all things taboo in Hollywood, and sometimes being that ballsy goes a long way.