In the world of action-figures, comic books, and cartoon tie-ins; few stars shine as brightly as G.I. Joe. These plastic warriors have been entertaining children with their depictions of violence for many years and now Paramount Studios has turned your childhood nostalgia into profit thanks to the G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA movie.
G.I. JOE: ETC is basically about a terrorist group called Cobra who want to rule the world by destroying various nations prized monuments. But, thankfully there is a group of elite soldiers called G.I. Joe who don’t agree with Cobra’s plan and engage them in elaborate battles to convince them that there are better goals to have; completing their G.E.D.’s come to mind.
You see, back in medieval France, there was a guy named McCullen who sold weapons to the king of France and his enemies. Things were going swimmingly for our man McCullen until the French found out and became upset (the French overreact to every little thing), so they locked him up, put a glowing-hot, metal mask on his face and started calling him “Destro: The Destroyer of Nations” because nothing says “don’t be like this guy” like a really kickass nickname.
The movie then jumps ahead to the not-too-distant future where the metal-head’s (that’s the kind of wordplay that keeps people coming back!) son, James (played by Christopher Eccleston) has continued the family business and created a new kind of bomb that, once detonated, releases a bunch of nanomites (they’re basically magical, metal bugs that can do anything the plot requires) in the form of a stink cloud that eats metal. The nanomites can also control people’s minds and turn skin to metal…mine are on order.
I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying that the “Destroyer of Nations” guy isn’t completely on the up-and-up. In fact, he’s in league with the Cobra people who send out a squad of nobodies, a flying saucer and the cleavage-machine they call The Baroness (played by Sienna Miller) to get the bombs from the N.A.T.O. convoy. Leading the convoy are our two main heroes, Ripcord (played by Marlon Wayans…I know, I know) and Duke (played by Channing Tatum with tough-guy scar). The convoy gets blown up in short order, but thanks to the intervention of various Joes like Scarlett (played by Rachel Nichols) and the ninja guy Snake Eyes (played by Ray Park), the bombs aren’t stolen and Duke and Ripcord survive…hurray!
The bombs are then taken to the Joe’s secret hideout where Duke and Ripcord join the team by shooting holograms and driving submarines through hoops. After a while, the Baroness and a bad ninja named Storm Shadow (played by Byung-hun Lee) invade “Joe Land” and steal the bombs. The rest of the movie is spent engaging Cobra in various action-scenes to stop them from doing things and thusly saving the world from almost certain inconvenience.
Boy, that’s a pretty long synopsis. I can’t imagine anyone actually read all of that and not just because no one reads this site. In fact, I could probably just stop writing right now and say that I finished the review and no one would know that I’m a liar (I’m not going to stop writing…just f.y.i). Honestly though, all that stuff basically takes place in the span of fifteen minutes. If there’s one thing that this movie does well, and that’s about the right number, it’s that it keeps moving.
In between a lot of the action stuff, the movie tries to make you care about some of the people involved through flashbacks and terribly written dialogue. It’s pretty obvious that the director, writers and caterers didn’t really care about these scenes; so neither did I. It was a good try though.
The real majority of this movie is spent leaping from one action scene to another without so much as a pee break. Even the slow, “character” moments often involved some kind of gun battle or fist fight. I believe this is mostly done to mask the fact that everything around the action is basically buns. It’s like when you fart in a crowd and figure if you just keep walking you’ll be gone by the time anyone notices…same principle.
You can relax though because the action is very good and the effects have been polished up since they released that first trailer that I hated. The “accelerator suits” are still stupid and look goofy in motion, but at least they’re only in one scene, don’t affect the outcome of said scene and are never seen again.
All things considered, I enjoyed G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA. There was a crap-ton of action and things moved fast enough to keep me from noticing too many plot-holes. The dialogue is occasionally awful, the Joe-ninja’s painted on lips are uncomfortably erotic and the female Joe (Joette?) uses a laser-guided crossbow against guys with phasers for some reason, but most of that can be ignored while things fly around and submarines reenact the destruction of the Deathstar.
