Review – G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

The synopsis of the movie is that a weapon of mass destruction is created, the military is supposed to protect against the villain getting the weapon, the villain gets the weapon, uses the weapon and then it’s up to G.I. Joe to save the day again. It’s a completely unique storyline.

The introduction of Cobra Cmdr. should’ve been made within the first 35 minutes of the movie. There should’ve been a hint, a shadow or a glimpse of Cobra Cmdr.’s helmet, but the movie is hell-bent on character development, background flashbacks and explanations. G.I. Joe has been around for years; it’s G.I. Joe.

It needs no explanation… Just tell the freakin’ story [actually the lack of].

 

The movie trailer for G.I. Joe is the perfect example of how take a less than perfect movie, highlight all the perfect scenes, all of the good stuff, put it all together into a short run and to sucker you in to going to see the longest two-hour movie of your life.

It’s no wonder that Paramount didn’t want to provide more screenings of the movie.

If this movie is not on DVD in a month, I’d be surprised.

G.I. Joe is a hobby shop of special effects from the very same people who brought you The Mummy and The Mummy 2. The movie is filled with special effects, and it’s absolutely wall-to-wall action, explosions, and unbelievable acts of adventure. The problem is, if you’re going to use special effects make sure that the special effects are not too obvious.

 

The special jumpsuits that G.I. Joe’s wear are used just a little too much, the helicopters were obviously computer-generated and the underwater submarine’s firing bullets at the other underwater submarine’s was just a little too much. I didn’t buy any of it.

 

 

I think that Dennis Quaid was supposed to be an obvious box office draw. Mr. Quaid has played in several high-caliber rolls and has shown himself to be a very good actor, but in this movie it does him absolutely no justice. From beginning to end I think that Dennis Quaid had approximately one page of full dialogue. He can act so much better and he is such a quality performer that I think that the role of him being in this movie was one of simply just getting a paycheck. My recommendation to him would be not to reprise his role with this adaptation of G.I. Joe.

 

The so-called main character of the movie is Duke, played by Channing Tatum. His performance in G.I. Joe could only be slightly outperformed by watching a rock to Riverdance. I would love to hear any conversations the director had to have with them in regards to his inspiration for the character, quiet, withdrawn, distraught, a feeling of guilt and somewhere in the mix a feeling of duty. He must’ve pulled the script directly out of a Sylvester Stallone movie; he only says about 12 words per scene and the rest of the time he’s running around with a gun with lots and lots of explosions.

Sienna Miller plays the role of the Baroness, working for the forces of Cobra. Again she’s one of those characters that you really just don’t care about. From the comic books she supposed to be ruthless, but as with most Hollywood movies they want to give the characters something that women can be sympathetic about- show that they’re human. What they should’ve done with her character is kept her in black tight leather, with great scenes of her with black hair and sunglasses kicking the butt of G.I. Joe’s. If you watch the movie [before it hits DVD in 3 weeks] you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Personally, this is my first experience with seeing Marlon Wayans as an action figure in a big-budget movie [that wasn’t produced by his brother]. Mr. Wayans plays the comic relief in G.I. Joe. He gets to where the action suits, say the witty lines and play the role of the court jester. I don’t see where his performance is anywhere in the caliber of impressive. I think his performance in G.I. Joe is a slightly more serious than his previous role from Scary Movie. But in all honesty the only thing that really made this movie interesting enough to keep watching was the comedy inserts that Mr. Wayans was able to provide.

I would like to mention that the person who played the role of Snake Eyes, played his role perfectly. He was dressed completely in black latex with some seriously cool sunglasses, some awesome martial arts exposition’s and he never said a word… it was perfect.

I really can’t understand what Hollywood is doing with childhood cartoons. When I go to Wal-Mart or Target, I go to the toy section and I see rows and sections of G.I. Joe and Transformers and I put together the thought that these toys are focused on young children. And then when Hollywood gets a hold of these franchise names, they completely destroy the characters.

 

Hollywood feels that there’s a strong need to have to build the characters, you flashbacks and explain why the characters do what they do. Hollywood can’t simply allow you to walk into a movie, start telling the story and let people live in suspense about those characters and allow the movie to continue, letting the audience figure out what’s going on with the characters; it’s a perfectly acceptable process to me.

I’m a parent of a young child that’s four years old; G.I. Joe’s and Transformers are his toys of choice. And while I think my son enjoyed the movie, this isn’t going to be a movie that I can purchase for him to where he can watch it over and over, simply because of the language.

 

And these movies are generated off of childhood cartoons and children’s toys, but yet Hollywood feels content to take these franchises and destroy them with injecting morally questionable behavior, bad language and excessive scenes of violence. G.I. Joe is just another example in a long list of franchise childhood toys to be exploited and substituted with subpar storylines, bad actors and cheesy graphics.

 

After their performance in G.I. Joe, if any of these actors decide to quit Hollywood right now, they could easily replace the late Billy Mays [as seen on TV ads] and any one of the actors that are working on the sci-fi channel [like a Killer Butterflies movie they would play].