GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

August 12th, 2009

By Eddy

Hey kids, if you weren’t tired of origin stories here’s one more for ya! 

The last blockbuster of the summer G.I. Joes: The Rise of Cobra opened last weekend and I joined in with the crowd on Sunday night to watch it.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (G.I. Joe for bevity purposes) documents the recruitment of team members Duke (Channing Tatum) and Rip Cord (Marlon Wayans) as well the aforementioned rise of the terrorist group Cobra. 

As with most films of this ilk; plot takes a second seat to the action and eye candy type of effects.  In short, a secret government group of commandos battle an organized criminal group of terrorist bent on dominating the world with their new technology (mind control and nano-bots).

If you are familiar with the cartoons, toys or comic books from the past two decades many of the characters that make up the stable of Joes and Cobra are presents. 

These include staples such as General Hawk, Snake Eyes, Scarlett and Heavy Duty.  On the Cobra side we see Cobra Commander, Storm Shadow, The Baroness, Zartan and Destro.  Included in the movie are the other worldly weapons and vehicles that were just as popular as the characters themselves.

Needless to say, the cartoons and comics were only created to sell the toys, just as Transformers .  This tone really falls in line with the movie as well.  The audience is given a half baked story line that was created to only feed the eyes, and position itself towards many more sequels. The creators of this film were angling towards the same type of movie as Transformers (note that I haven’t seen the second movie yet).  Unfortunately, they just don’t do it as well. 

Let do the Transformer -type movie check list:

1: Make a movie from a popular toy and cartoon series-uh, Check .

2. Have a couple of hot girls- Check .  

Sienna Miller as Baroness (you could so tell that she was hoping for a Megan Fox level of leap in fame from this movie…not going to happen) and Rachael Nichols as Scarlett.  Let me say that I thought Scarlett was much hotter.  Got to love those Gingers. 

3.  Eye popping visual effects- Check ?

For a movie that relies on visual effects to sell ticket they were pretty poor at times.  Quote of the night from D “This looks like graphics that a couple of engineers at my company put together on their spare time.” 

The reason this is so funny is that D for most movies has to ask me if the scene was computer generated or not (even if they are blatantly CGI to me).  If she is saying that the CGI was bad then you have to believe that it was super duper crapper-ific.

4. Elaborate action/fighting scenes- Check ?

These scenes weren’t too bad in GI Joe, especially the chase scene in Paris.  But really, in a movie like this you have to at least have high expectations for these action scenes.

I didn’t like the use of their futuristic laser type weapons, while essential to the G.I. canon,  I felt it made things look too unrealistic for me.  I was  also terribly disappointed in the fights between Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes.  Their battles were the things I had the highest hopes for as you don’t get to see too many martial arts fights in American cinema.  I wanted the fights to last a bit longer, especially their final one, and while they thankfully resisted the temptation to use wires the fight choreography was not very imaginative.

5. Stupid tie-ins to the cartoons and offbeat humor- Check .

Get ready for a couple of “knowing is half the battle” and “kung fu grip” references.  The funny lines seemed to be thrown in and were a bit jagged and out of place. The film really doesn’t create the air of lightheartedness that Transformers had, but it might be taking itself a little bit too serious.  Though there was a five second cameo of Brendan Fraser that leads me to believe that he had a couple of more scenes that were left on the cutting room floor.

I ultimately felt flat leaving the theater, while I didn’t feel like I wasted my time watching the film, I also didn’t get the “wow this was a fun movie to watch” feeling. 

Don’t get me wrong I knew this wasn’t going to be a work of art, but I was at least hoping to have a sense of fun. 

Most popcorn flicks don’t require the watcher to really work when watching the movie.  Its like junk food, just be lazy and enjoy the artificial rush. G.I. Joes really makes you work at enjoying it, you have to be into the characters, and force yourself to disbelieve.  Maybe, its because I am not a kid anymore, but everything see either heavy handed or half baked and nothing in between. 

Now years later it’s a struggle to watch any of these old cartoons, but when I think back to those days I can see why I enjoyed them.  You could say that this movie was the equivalent of those old cartoons, now that I am older it just doesn’t do it for me anymore. In the end, the movie, was as lifeless as its toys and I outgrew the toys a long time ago

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