G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Review By renodc

After seeing The Rise of Cobra, I find myself in the middle of the road on whether or not I liked it. I think it boils down to perspective. If I take the adult perspective, I would say the pace made it fun but overall it was extremely mediocre in substance. On the other hand, if I put myself in the shoes of say a 12 year old, I probably would say that GI Joe was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. When I entered the theater, I decided to go with the latter perspective based on seeing the trailers, which is probably why I enjoyed it. I wasn’t expecting The Dark Knight. All I was looking for were some mindless action scenes strung together, and that’s pretty much what I got.

First off, the story itself, while pedestrian in vision, stayed fairly true to the source material minus a couple of useless romantic twists and some minor character changes. The movie is basically a prequel to the cartoon series specifically dealing w/ the formation of Cobra, and delving into, albeit very superficially, the origins of Cobra Commander, Destro, Baroness, Duke, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

What I liked:

1) It was escapism. Sometimes it's refreshing just to watch crap blow up.

2) It was kid friendly. With the exception of a guy being eaten by nanites and a girl getting stabbed with a really crappy CGI knife, this movie probably could have been rated PG. A movie based on a kid's toy ought to be appropriate for kids. This is one of the few that has been. There was no nudity or sexual situations, although Rachel Nichols kissing Marlon Wayans was a little disturbing. I think I only counted one expletive throughout the entire movie, and while the action was intense it was still very cartoonish. It was also straight good vs. evil and none of that grey moral relativism crap.

3) The physical effects, the fight scenes and the stunts. These were very good (unfortunately the CGI was very bad). Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow had some decent fight sequences even though one of the scenes looked like they accidently ended up on the set of The Phantom Menace.

4) Joseph Gordon Levitt and Christopher Eccleston gave great performances, and Adewale 'whatever his last name is' was very good as Heavy Metal. Ray Park was perfect as Snake Eyes, and Rachel Nichols did well as Scarlett. I also have to give a nod to both Sienna Miller and Dennis Quaid, even though their performances weren't stellar they by far had the worst dialogue in the script to work with.

5) The Wardrobe. Everything had the look and feel of GI Joe, especially Snake-Eyes. To me, he was the highlight of the movie. The only thing I would change about him was the lips. Why the hell did he need lips? That was almost as bad as Schumacher giving Batman pokies.

What I disliked:

1)Marlon Wayans as Ripcord. This was a money casting strictly made to reach a specific demographic. If they wanted a black actor, there are a lot better choices than freakin' Marlon Wayans, and why the random choice of the character Ripcord? There are popular black characters in GI JOE, like Roadblock and Stalker. Why not use them?

2)Channing Tatum. His performance was as wooden and range-less as any I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame Sam Worthington had to step down from the role due to schedule conflicts. He would have brought a whole lot more to the role acting-wise than Tatum did.

3)Storm Shadow. Without Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, I doubt I would’ve ever become interested in GI Joe. They both are very deep characters with strong internal conflict. The thing I loved about SS in the comics and cartoon was that while he was technically on the side of evil he still maintained a code of honor. He just got caught up in radical ideology. In this film, they basically strip away all of his depth of character and turn him into a transparent metrosexual prick with "daddy issues".

4)The CGI. It was unbelievably bad. It was so bad that at times I wondered if it wasn’t intentional, possibly to create a more “cartoonish” tone. It really was about 10 years outdated. Sommers’ original Mummy film had better CGI.

****Spoiler Warning****

5)The Romance. The whole Duke and Baroness/Ana romantic twist and the Scarlett/Ripcord pairing really sucked. This probably is the biggest detour that was taken from the original and it was completely unnecessary. One of the main themes of GI Joe since its inception has been the unspoken attraction between Duke and Scarlett, and in this film they completely toss that away in order to create an uninteresting plot twist and to make a little social commentary. What’s worse is that Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller had absolutely zero chemistry, and Rachel Nichols and Marlon Wayans had even less. It was like watching an attractive woman kiss a billie goat. I reiterate that there are plenty of black actors that are better actors than Marlon Wayans, and there are definitely plenty of black actors out there that are infinitely more attractive than Marlon Wayans. Dude, just looks goofy.

6)The ending. This could have been a great ending, and Sommers’ seemingly was building up to an ending that everybody knew was going to involve the revealing of Cobra Commander. The build up to this was surprisingly good, and the anticipation was palpable. The scene in question saw a disfigured Rex with his back turned to Destro. He was obviously putting something on his head. You just knew what was coming. You knew he was about to turn around, but would he have on his helmet with reflective visor or would it be the hood? The tension was building. Everyone was on the edge of their seat, and then he slowly turns around to Destro and says, “You can call me, Commander” which is a very cool line except that it’s coming from a guy whose wearing what looks like Tupperware pantyhose on his head. It pretty much was a swift quick to the nuts.

In conclusion (finally), GI Joe was OK, but it could have been ever so much better.