The film, which is set to release in May of 2010, includes new stars Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Mickey Rourke as Whiplash and is welcoming back Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, along with Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts.

In addition to some new enemies, there will be a little more sexual tension in this film, Downey told EW.  With Potts’ promotion to CEO of Stark Industries and the introduction of Natasha (Black Widow) as Stark’s sultry new assistant, the audience will be praying for a catfight.

“We’re horny,” said Downey.  ”Not, like, can’t-bring-your-kids horny, but just…horny.”

It’s a sad day when the word “journalist” is no longer associated with Woodward and Bernstein and Edward R. Murrow, but rather Matt Drudge and Perez Hilton. Instead of viewing reporters as the defenders of the truth, they see gossip mongers and slime who will do anything for a story. Paramount’s new release, “The Soloist,” tells the real-life story of Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez offers the one element journalists need to regain their good name: redemption.

“The Soloist,” which is based of Lopez’s novel of the same name, is about a series of columns Lopez wrote in 2005 about a homeless man named Nathaniel Anthony Ayers. Lopez, played in the film by Robert Downey Jr., meets Ayers under a statue of Beethoven in Los Angeles; Ayers is playing a violin with only two strings. As Lopez soon finds out, Ayers was a musical prodigy who attended prestigious New York music academy Julliard before becoming schizophrenic.

Ayers, played by Jamie Foxx at his finest, is at first just a column for Lopez, but then becomes something more: a friend. Through his time spent with Ayers, Lopez continued on to launch a crusade against homelessness in L.A.’s Skid Row.

“The Soloist” is a wonderfully cohesive piece: the acting, cinematography and plot are all there. It’s an unbelievable real-life story brought to the big screen in an unbelievable, real-life way. Robert Downey Jr. is continuing his comeback following “Iron Man” and “Tropic Thunder” in 2008 and Jamie Foxx gave a beautiful performance that is sure to earn him another Oscar nod. The repeated, wide shots of L.A. show that, more than this is a story about Lopez or Ayers, it is a story about the city of Los Angeles.

The movie adaptation could have followed Lopez’s lead and picked up the fight against homelessness, but instead chose to chase after a medley of other causes instead; letting visuals of drug-riddled Skid Row during Lopez’s night spent on the streets with Ayers speak for themselves.

In a curious scene, a television is shown airing news footage of Hurricane Katrina, then the camera zooms back to reveal a woman ignoring the television to read Lopez’s column about Ayers. She proceeds to send her cello to Lopez as a gift for Ayers, but the scene felt like a criticism of the American public for caring more about fluff columns versus actual crises.

The sentiment was made clearer earlier in the film when a fellow L.A. Times reporter shared his aggravation that a deep investigative Page One story he wrote received almost no response, while a column Lopez wrote about a bicycle crash he was in led to worried fan mail about his safety. Lopez’s ex-wife Mary (Catherine Keener) echoed similar sentiments to Lopez when she said a story about him giving blood as a follow-up to his bicycle accident was sure to sell papers.

The criticism seemed to undermine the point of the film. Yes, it is entirely true that it is important for the American public to not ignore the larger issues at hand (i.e. the current economic state, the wars the United States is engaged in, the still struggling survivors of Hurricane Katrina) for the sake of a human interest piece. But the crux of “The Soloist” is the human interest piece and the good that it does for Ayers and the city of L.A., so the filmmaker’s criticism feels hypocritical.

Robert Downey Jr.’s loveable cynicism won him hearts and a comeback in 2008’s “Iron Man,” but it works against him here. The Steve Lopez of the film is different than the Steve Lopez in real life. In the film he is a broken man: a divorcee who doesn’t talk to his son. His home is less of a home and more a pile of unpacked boxes. He is heartless and careless; telling his ex-wife he never loved anything the way Ayers loves music. Whoever made the decision to turn the happy, settled-in-his-life husband and father character of real-life Lopez into this unhappy creature did the film a disservice. Downey’s cynicism makes the implied transformation of Lopez through his experiences with Ayers seem too insincere, and the transition is far too insignificant a part of the movie.

One of the most beautiful shots in the film is when Ayers and Lopez are granted access to an orchestra rehearsal at Disney Hall. The orchestra starts playing Beethoven (Ayers’ favorite) and the camera zooms in close to Foxx’s face. His eyes close, and a myriad of colors dance across the screen for the rest of Beethoven’s symphony. The audience is seeing through the eyes of Ayers the way he views music. It is one of the most intimate moments experienced in cinema with a camera because the audience is at once one with the character.

The story of Lopez and Ayers’ relationship is truly beautiful, whether it be told through film, book or newspaper. But Ayers’ line in regards to his music, “Do you think I can be good again?”, resonates on so many levels deeper than the obvious. Do you think journalists can be good again? Do you think America can be good again? The film ends with hope and a simple answer: Yes.

Ben Stiller might not act in the greatest movies, but he sure knows how to write and direct them. With ‘Tropic Thunder’, Stiller creates an explosive new comedy that’s sure to blow anyone’s socks off.

‘Thunder’ starts off right from what its trailer sets up: director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) wants to create the greatest war movie of all time, but his lead actors in his film-based-on-a-book-based-on-a-true-story (but is it?) don’t have the emotional scope needed to understand the complexities behind the Vietnam War.

After some difficult struggles with his prima donna actors: Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Cockburn is convinced by the author of the book Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) to drop the actors in the middle of Vietnam and shoot the movie ‘guerilla-style’. Both the film and the book in the movie are named ‘Tropic Thunder’, which is where the title of the actual film comes from.

It takes about 20 minutes for Lazarus, Portnoy, Speedman, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) to be stranded in the middle of nowhere in Vietnam, thinking that they are filming a movie that had suddenly become very real. The movie just becomes funnier as it goes along, with the actors never being quite sure whether or not they are actually in a movie or not.

Also, as a slightly-spoilerish warning, the ad you will see for “Booty Sweat” is not the cinema going insane, but rather marks the completely inventive and perfectly hysterical introduction to “Tropic Thunder”. You have been warned.

While not as outlandish as ‘Zoolander’ was, ‘Tropic Thunder’ is set outside our reality in a way that everyone can understand. Ben Stiller has said in previous interviews that he wrote ‘Thunder’ as a parody of the movie business and, even if no one in the audience understood it, it would still be hysterical to him. Well Ben, we get it, and it’s still pretty funny.

Unexpected were the many cameos, both big and small, made by some of Hollywood’s biggest actors. Matthew McConaughey has a surprisingly big role as Speedman’s agent, and Tom Cruise definitely deserves all the buzz he’s been getting as the big-time film executive behind ‘Tropic Thunder’. Danny McBride was hysterical as the pyromaniac effects guy Cody. Also keep an eye out for Bill Hader, Tyra Banks, Maria Menunos, Jason Bateman, Lance Bass, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jon Voight, Christine Taylor and an I-can’t-believe-he-did-that Tobey Maguire (don’t be late or you’ll miss that one). Oh yeah, Stiller got them all.

Sure it may not be the most outright intelligent film to make a mockery of Hollywood, but there is plenty of insider humor that can be relished by all. The scene where Lazarus explains to Speedman why he didn’t get an Oscar for his role as the mentally retarded boy Jack in his film ‘Simple Jack’ because he went “full retard” was one of the funniest scenes in the film.

Downey was hysterical as Lazarus who becomes so immersed in his role that he changed his skin color in order to become more in character. Black was very two dimensional and not funny as Portnoy, the heroine-addicted fat guy. And Stiller was, well, Stiller.

The most break-out role in the film was hands-down Jay Baruchel, who many will recognize from “Knocked Up” and “Million Dollar Baby” but who has not landed a leading role since Judd Aptow’s lesser known but just as short-lived TV series, “Undeclared”. Baruchel’s character Kevin Sandusky is very similar to Baruchel in real life: he is an actor who has gotten his first big role and is playing everything by the book, like going to the boot camp training that had been assigned and learning how to read a map, while his fellow actors just brushed everything off. As the only one with a lick of common sense, Baruchel has some definite potential and it seems like we can expect big things from him in the future.

‘Tropic Thunder’ so far has been the best comedy of 2008, and it very much deserves that title. While the movie will keep audiences laughing well into the credits, it brings about two important questions: Why hasn’t Ben Stiller written and directed more movies, and will this be Tom Cruise’s big comeback (in more than one way)?

The not-so-viral stunt that made going to see “Tropic Thunder” a must. This clip is property of MTV Networks, no copyright infringement intended.

Oh yeah, Carl makes a cameo too. See if you can spot him!