G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra «½
PG-13, 118m. 2009
Cast & Credits: Dennis Quaid (General Hawk), Channing Tatum (Duke), Sienna Miller (Ana/Baroness), Ray Park (Snake Eyes), Rachel Nichols (Scarlett), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Heavy Duty), Said Taghmaoui (Breaker), Marlon Wayans (Ripcord), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Doctor/Rex), Christopher Eccleston (McCullen/Destro), Jonathan Pryce (U.S. President), Lee Byeong-heon (Storm Shadow), Arnold Vosloo (Zartan). Screenplay by Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett. Directed by Stephen Sommers.
I went in expecting "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" to not be as bad as "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and on that level, the movie delivered.
Just don’t go mistaking that as a good thing. The only two positive things I can say about “Joe” is that one, at 118 minutes, the running time was satisfyingly less than what it took to sit through Revenge of the Fallen (150 minutes). Two, the film is not filled to the brim with sexually suggestive, vulgar, unfunny innuendos as the second Transformers.
That’s not to say the film doesn’t have some female eye candy to gawk at. This is for young boys above age 10 who have yet to be told the word defining their being sexually stimulated when they see a beautiful woman on screen is called puberty. Like Transformers 2 which had Megan Fox, "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" has The Baroness played by Sienna Miller who sports a black latex, leather outfit. The costume looks so tight around her chest as a corset that it looks like her breasts can’t wait to get free.
The two words that best describe G.I. Joe is “no imagination.” The film’s supposed $175 million budget is the equivalent of giving a kid a 5,000-plus piece exclusive Lego set that had to be special ordered. Without instructions, the kid would have no idea what to build.
The idea of Lego building is creating something out of one’s imagination. You would think the same goes for making movies. The filmmakers had $175 million to play with, and the most they could give the audience was lots of car chases, explosions, and the big payoff shot of the Eiffel Tower crashing down on hundreds of French citizens. It’s as if director Stephen Sommers ("The Mummy"-1999) was in competition with Revenge of the Fallen’s director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to see who can fill their film with the most visual effects. I don’t mind sitting through stupid, dumb expensive movies as long as they are fun. The filmmakers, however, left the “fun” out of this.
When G.I. Joe takes a break from the action, we are inundated with subplots echoing better movies, as individual characters recall fateful moments from their pasts, like the anti-heroes in "Watchmen" (2009) did. When a martial arts villain kills his master out of jealousy, the scene reminded me of what Daryl Hannah’s assassin character did to her sadistic instructor in "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" (2004). The final martial arts sword fight between Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and his villainous brother takes place above a chasm that looks like the shot was ripped off from the lightsaber duel between Liam Neeson’s and Ewan MacGregor’s Jedi Knights against Darth Maul in "Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999).
The plot? Well, like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," there doesn’t seem to be much of one. The good guys, who I will call “the Joes,” are an elite army team led by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid in a role I could easily picture John Wayne doing since Quaid’s character is so patriotic) whose home base is somewhere out in the desert, perhaps Saudi Arabia. The bad guys reside in an underwater lair out in the Antarctic led by a military industrialist named McCullen (Christopher Eccleston), who threatens the world with some special missile technology that when fired, unleashes some mechanical bugs that eat steel. As to the reason why he wants to threaten the world, I am about as clueless as the President of the United States’ general staff is.
When the president (Jonathan Pryce) asks what the villain’s demands are, we get no answer.
As a matter of fact, when it comes to my knowledge of Transformers and G.I. Joe toys, I have to confess I am very ignorant. Like Transformers, I never watched the G.I. Joe cartoon series from the 1980s, much less read the long-running Marvel comic book. I have never owned a toy transformer in my life, not even a Star Wars one. The closest I came to even touching a G.I. Joe action figure was when I first moved to Texas and spent the first few weeks at my cousin’s house because the furniture hadn’t arrived yet. (He had G. I. Joe toys).
That was back when I had just graduated from grade school. The most I know about any “Joe” character is that Destro has a silver head.
Just about all the characters here are as soulless as the plastic ¾-inch and 12- inch Hasbro action figures you see littering the store shelves of Toys R’ Us. Like last year’s "The Spirit" (2008), G.I. Joe is nothing more than a big budget mass marketing toy, much like the action figures from Hasbro on which this film is based. There is not a single character we care about, loathe, or root for. The only thing interesting about the characters are the code names they are all given, and that is provided you already know who they are without looking at the end credits. Other than The Baroness and Snake Eyes, I have no idea who “Duke,” “Heavy Duty”, “The Doctor”, “Storm Shadow”, “Dr. Mindbender”, “Hard Master”, “Zartan”, or “Ripcord” are or what their role is in the “Joe” universe.
G.I. Joe does have one thing going for it and that is Sienna Miller. It’s no wonder the toymakers at Hasbro made an exclusive 12-inch doll of her character, The Baroness, that was available for purchase at the San Diego Comic Con last July. (You can get it for $69.99 on Amazon.com.)
Miller has a unique gift of uttering one-liners (“That redhead is starting to piss me off!”) any screenwriter could have written. If they had been uttered by anyone else, the audience would laugh at both their performance and the dialogue. The way Miller says her lines, she makes them sound believable.
Miller acts like she secretly knows just how ridiculous a film project this really is but decides to make the most of a lousy situation. She chews up the scenery, firing machine guns in both hands, struts around in leather boots or expensive black pumps, engages in catfights with a female redhead “Joe” named Scarlett O’Hara (Rachel Nichols), and utters lines like “Nice shoes,” as she throws a woman out of an elevator at a Paris mall. She’d make a great James Bond villainess should she ever want to venture into other action-adventure roles.
I wonder how Miller would react upon my telling her I didn’t agree with the comment she made to the entertainment media recently where she said "G.I. Joe is not going to be the best acting work I've ever done.”
©8/10/09
PG-13, 118m. 2009
Cast & Credits: Dennis Quaid (General Hawk), Channing Tatum (Duke), Sienna Miller (Ana/Baroness), Ray Park (Snake Eyes), Rachel Nichols (Scarlett), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Heavy Duty), Said Taghmaoui (Breaker), Marlon Wayans (Ripcord), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Doctor/Rex), Christopher Eccleston (McCullen/Destro), Jonathan Pryce (U.S. President), Lee Byeong-heon (Storm Shadow), Arnold Vosloo (Zartan). Screenplay by Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett. Directed by Stephen Sommers.
Just don’t go mistaking that as a good thing. The only two positive things I can say about “Joe” is that one, at 118 minutes, the running time was satisfyingly less than what it took to sit through Revenge of the Fallen (150 minutes). Two, the film is not filled to the brim with sexually suggestive, vulgar, unfunny innuendos as the second Transformers.
That’s not to say the film doesn’t have some female eye candy to gawk at. This is for young boys above age 10 who have yet to be told the word defining their being sexually stimulated when they see a beautiful woman on screen is called puberty. Like Transformers 2 which had Megan Fox, "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" has The Baroness played by Sienna Miller who sports a black latex, leather outfit. The costume looks so tight around her chest as a corset that it looks like her breasts can’t wait to get free.
The two words that best describe G.I. Joe is “no imagination.” The film’s supposed $175 million budget is the equivalent of giving a kid a 5,000-plus piece exclusive Lego set that had to be special ordered. Without instructions, the kid would have no idea what to build.
The idea of Lego building is creating something out of one’s imagination. You would think the same goes for making movies. The filmmakers had $175 million to play with, and the most they could give the audience was lots of car chases, explosions, and the big payoff shot of the Eiffel Tower crashing down on hundreds of French citizens. It’s as if director Stephen Sommers ("The Mummy"-1999) was in competition with Revenge of the Fallen’s director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to see who can fill their film with the most visual effects. I don’t mind sitting through stupid, dumb expensive movies as long as they are fun. The filmmakers, however, left the “fun” out of this.
When G.I. Joe takes a break from the action, we are inundated with subplots echoing better movies, as individual characters recall fateful moments from their pasts, like the anti-heroes in "Watchmen" (2009) did. When a martial arts villain kills his master out of jealousy, the scene reminded me of what Daryl Hannah’s assassin character did to her sadistic instructor in "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" (2004). The final martial arts sword fight between Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and his villainous brother takes place above a chasm that looks like the shot was ripped off from the lightsaber duel between Liam Neeson’s and Ewan MacGregor’s Jedi Knights against Darth Maul in "Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999).
The plot? Well, like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," there doesn’t seem to be much of one. The good guys, who I will call “the Joes,” are an elite army team led by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid in a role I could easily picture John Wayne doing since Quaid’s character is so patriotic) whose home base is somewhere out in the desert, perhaps Saudi Arabia. The bad guys reside in an underwater lair out in the Antarctic led by a military industrialist named McCullen (Christopher Eccleston), who threatens the world with some special missile technology that when fired, unleashes some mechanical bugs that eat steel. As to the reason why he wants to threaten the world, I am about as clueless as the President of the United States’ general staff is.
When the president (Jonathan Pryce) asks what the villain’s demands are, we get no answer.
As a matter of fact, when it comes to my knowledge of Transformers and G.I. Joe toys, I have to confess I am very ignorant. Like Transformers, I never watched the G.I. Joe cartoon series from the 1980s, much less read the long-running Marvel comic book. I have never owned a toy transformer in my life, not even a Star Wars one. The closest I came to even touching a G.I. Joe action figure was when I first moved to Texas and spent the first few weeks at my cousin’s house because the furniture hadn’t arrived yet. (He had G. I. Joe toys).
That was back when I had just graduated from grade school. The most I know about any “Joe” character is that Destro has a silver head.
Just about all the characters here are as soulless as the plastic ¾-inch and 12- inch Hasbro action figures you see littering the store shelves of Toys R’ Us. Like last year’s "The Spirit" (2008), G.I. Joe is nothing more than a big budget mass marketing toy, much like the action figures from Hasbro on which this film is based. There is not a single character we care about, loathe, or root for. The only thing interesting about the characters are the code names they are all given, and that is provided you already know who they are without looking at the end credits. Other than The Baroness and Snake Eyes, I have no idea who “Duke,” “Heavy Duty”, “The Doctor”, “Storm Shadow”, “Dr. Mindbender”, “Hard Master”, “Zartan”, or “Ripcord” are or what their role is in the “Joe” universe.
G.I. Joe does have one thing going for it and that is Sienna Miller. It’s no wonder the toymakers at Hasbro made an exclusive 12-inch doll of her character, The Baroness, that was available for purchase at the San Diego Comic Con last July. (You can get it for $69.99 on Amazon.com.)
Miller has a unique gift of uttering one-liners (“That redhead is starting to piss me off!”) any screenwriter could have written. If they had been uttered by anyone else, the audience would laugh at both their performance and the dialogue. The way Miller says her lines, she makes them sound believable.
Miller acts like she secretly knows just how ridiculous a film project this really is but decides to make the most of a lousy situation. She chews up the scenery, firing machine guns in both hands, struts around in leather boots or expensive black pumps, engages in catfights with a female redhead “Joe” named Scarlett O’Hara (Rachel Nichols), and utters lines like “Nice shoes,” as she throws a woman out of an elevator at a Paris mall. She’d make a great James Bond villainess should she ever want to venture into other action-adventure roles.
I wonder how Miller would react upon my telling her I didn’t agree with the comment she made to the entertainment media recently where she said "G.I. Joe is not going to be the best acting work I've ever done.”
©8/10/09
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