Paramount’s feature-film live-action adaptation of the ’80s comic-book and animation and toy franchise, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, is one of the most fascinatingly flawed big-budget movies imaginable. I stumbled out of it overcome with special-effects-induced sensory overload when it played in the theaters, wondering just how narrowly Hollywood is marketing its films these days– is it, say, down to the year? The month? I’m moved to ask this because G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra feels like the perfect film for a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old-boy — not one day more, not one day less.
You can’t imagine someone much older enjoying G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra because, frankly, it is silly — cartoony and crude, full of phony high-tech pseudoscience and heroes and villains with goofy codenames like “Snake Eyes” and “Ripcord,” plus hidden bases that look like something from a Roger Moore Bond film on steroids. And I can’t recommend someone much younger watching G. I Joe: The Rise of Cobra because while it is silly and nonsensical, it is also incredibly violent. And I’m not talking about the red-laser/blue-laser violence of the cartoon that inspired the film, either, where no blood was spilled and bad things happened far away; in the first reel of G.I. Joe, we see someone get a red-hot iron mask latched to their face while they’re screaming, then a few people getting stabbed in the eye with knives and crossbow bolts; it is fun for the whole family, but only if your family likes watching people burned alive and stabbed in the brain. And I know plenty of fans of the ’80s comics and TV show and toys who liked the nostalgia trip G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra offered, but, much like Transformers, I don’t have that spoonful of sweet, toxic nostalgia it takes to make those big, stupid pills go down.
The plot involves a new generation of weapons — nanotechnological wonders that can devour a city — being transported from the headquarters of their manufacturer, James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) by NATO’s best and brightest, led by Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans). The convoy’s attacked by a group of high-tech mercenaries who wipe out the NATO team but for Duke and Ripcord, who are saved by a cavalry of intense international good guys including Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Breaker (Said Taghmaoui), who escort Duke and Ripcord and the weapons back to the headquarters of the international fighting force known as … G.I. Joe.
There’s some backstory here — actually, there’s too much backstory, including Duke’s past with the Baroness (Sienna Miller) the femme fatale at the tip of the bad guy’s spear, and the complex past between Snake Eyes and the bad guy’s master martial artist, Storm Shadow (Byung Hun-Lee) and the death of the Baroness’ brother Rex (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) secret identity of the deformed genius known as the Doctor who lurks behind McCullen’s plans. … Putting aside how just typing that made me feel stupider, the fact is the G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra feels like a comic-book version of Tom Clancy, where the globe-trotting adventure is committed by heroes who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. (I don’t use this phrasing lightly; much of the film involves our heroes in powered “Accelerator Suits” that let them outrun cars, jump high into the air and rip off Iron Man.)
Directed by Stephen Sommers, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra has much in common with Sommers’ other high-adventure live-action cartoons like The Mummy and Van Helsing, which vary between somewhat fun (The Mummy) and unendurably stupid (Van Helsing). There’s something a little uneasy about watching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, in part because of how amazingly violent it is and yet, at the same time, how utterly trivial it is. If you want me to be engaged by a gripping tale of the fight against terror, maybe it shouldn’t have the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” over the end credits; if you want me to enjoy a childish, adolescent tale of gung-ho power fantasy, maybe it shouldn’t have so many third-degree burn victims and women getting stabbed through the heart from behind so we see the blade come out through their sternum. If I were fifteen, maybe I’d enjoy watching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra; if I had a fifteen-year-old, I’d think twice about letting them watch it.
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 8:41 am
I am over 50 and liked the movie, just action, no wasted time on character building etc. Just a plain fun movie and it just flies by. My now grown sons loved the original cartoon and liked the movie. And I’m glad to say I liked TF2. Relax people this is a movie meant for entertainment only. Times are hard right now and escapism is a good relieve. The last thing I need or want to see right now is some serious crap about life. I have enough drama in my own life. I like to escape.
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 8:50 am
I saw this movie with two friends – all three of us G.I. Joe fans in our adolescence – in a packed megaplex theater while attending a comic book convention. We were so offended by the suckage of this film we couldn’t stop spitting vitriol for hours afterward.
I would have been comfortable with big, dumb fun. I really wanted a smart evolution from the 80s cartoon concept (but I’d seen the trailers, so didn’t expect that at all). Instead? A moronic plot, terrible acting, brashly inconsistent special effects, and a big fat insult to its viewing audience.
Bothered by the ice sinking? How about when giant missiles burst from the iceberg about twenty feet from our “heroes” and they aren’t vaporized by the blast – just knocked down (the ice doesn’t melt either)? Or the advanced fighter jet that only operates by voice commands – because you can shout the word for “fire” faster than you can pull a trigger?
We’ve already seen this movie – done much better, as satire. It was called “Team America: World Police”.
Also, to the author of this review, while I understand the correlations you draw to hack-job comic books and their Stan Lee-esque pseudo-science, please don’t sink the whole genre into this definition of idiocy. A good portion of the sequential art offerings today are intelligently plotted and well executed, and not necessarily about colorful costumed heroes destroying whole city blocks in service to “good”. As a comic book writer myself, I strive for thematically-meaningful, thoughtful stories that are also fun and entertaining. G.I. Joe was none of these things.
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 8:59 am
I’ve never been able to figure out in movies how the heros (using in this case, an accelerator suit) can run fast enough to make up a mile of distance between themselves and the bad guys, but can never seem to keep going that fast to bridge the last 5 feet of gap between them… maybe defective suits?
In any event, my wife and I sat through the whole rental (again, at a buck… why not). It was a pretty bad movie, even by comic book movie standards. If you kept a very (very) light-hearted approach to the movie, it was bearable; but I can’t imagine paying money to either own it or watch it again…
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 9:12 am
I also fit into the early 30′s crowd so the movie brought back some memories… however, I didn’t remember much of the storyline.
It was definitely missing an anti-drug infomercial to go along with the other cheesy old-school sayings like “Go Joe!” There were others but I choose to not remember them.
“now you know, and knowing is half the battle”
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 9:18 am
You know those really bad, CGI graphics that you see in video games between levels? The kind where the guy is running or the car is driving, but their legs or tires aren’t moving at the same speed as the road, or the cars can almost move sideways because there is no actual traction? That was this entire movie. Horrible CGI and in most instances horrible acting. Not worth the buck- and this from a person who loved TF2, Star Trek, even most Brendan Fraser (who makes a cameo btw) movies just because they are entertaining. That should tell you how unbearably bad this movie was.
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 9:20 am
I just thought it sucked and stop watching less than half way through.
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 9:25 am
My husband and I are over 50 and we loved it! Lots of action and high-tech war toys! Great special effects! It definitely kept your interest and the good vs. evil plot was sufficient to make you root for the good guys. Definitely it left room for a sequel! Maybe it was just given the wrong title?
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 10:22 am
I agree that there was too much violence for a movie that’s presumably marketed to kids. I especially objected to the scene where two 10 year old boys are beating each other bloody. I’m just glad I was there to see it with my 8-year-old son so I could at least tell him I thought that was inappropriate.
As far as the story – of course it wasn’t believable. Still, I think people who make movies should put a little effort into at least making it POSSIBLE for us to suspend our disbelief. Once you set your imaginary rules for how your pretend universe works, you need to follow them. Otherwise your viewers just sit in their seats for an hour and a half saying to themselves, “well, that’s stupid.”
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 10:32 am
I’d definitely give this movie 5 stars…out of a hundred perhaps. The acting was simply godawful, the plotline silly, and the characters forgettable. C’mon people – just because it’s based on figures from our nostalgic past, does not give hollywood the right to make a half-assed movie they can rake us over the coals for ( and how about making a movie like this in 90 minutes or less, please? Mr. Bay, I’m also looking at you…). Maybe if you smoke 20 bong hits, run into a brick wall, and induce a coma for which you can come out of right before you watch this movie, maaaaybe then you’ll enjoy this movie. I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone who enjoyed this movie, but escapism is one thing, but that does not mean that your intelligence should be robbed. Iron man and the X-men movies ( ok, maybe not X-men 3) managed to suspend you in comic book surrealism without making the viewer feel dumber as each minute progressed…G.I. Joe did. All of that being said, if this was a sole movie based on Snake Eyes, perhaps this movie could have been salvageable, as he was the only character worth delving into.
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 11:01 am
I would not recommend this movie to anyone. It was definately not what i was expecting, especially since I was a big Joe fan from the 80′s. CGI was extremely cheesey. Dont waste your time watching this movie. hopefully the sequal will be better.
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 8:59 am
I hear you on the violence marketed to young kids. I felt the same way about the profanity in TRANSFORMERS after seeing the movie and hearing the term “he just got his cherry popped” then going to Toy R Us and seeing eight year olds looking at the Revenge of the Fallen action figures. My boys are only 2 years and 6weeks so this was not an issue for me personally, but in my opinion a movie created from a Hasbro action figure should not be rated above PG.
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 10:02 am
While most movies today are blue/green screen, CGI I find them very interesting. I will watch GI Joe just for the CGI and special effects. Sure, most of these comic book movies are not the way we remembered them as kids, but X-men was popular due to special effects as was Armageddon. Why not just sit back and view how far technology has come? That’s what I do…..Some people are just better at the CGI/special effects than others, but if you play with something long enough it will eventually get better.
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 12:12 pm
if freakin g.i. joe… what did you people expect?… i thought it was very entertaining… and to the reviewer… those are the names of the characters… did you not have a childhood or somthing?
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 2:22 pm
It wasn’t bad for the dollar; thought it was violently cute. CGI was good. I actually liked the impalement, beheadings, and uber violence. I enjoyed the action as a cartoon/anime/comic/graphic-novel fan but otherwise it was a mediocre GI Joe fan movie. Took me 4hrs to watch it. lol A lot of scenes were blatantly incorrect on a factual basis but hey it is fiction. And disgraced technology as I am a tech major.
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I took my family to see this at a discount theatre and found it to be quite entertaining. Like a few others I enjoyed it more the TF2. Being in my early 30s I have much love for both shows so I think its great that we even have these movies being made! But for some reason optimus and co just couldnt keep me into it for the whole 6 hrs! Anyway G.I.Joe it was cheesy for sure and special effects were all over the place but i still enjoyed it for what it was. Mindless entertainment for an hour and 30!! IMO the original Transformers was way better than any “80s” toy movies thats come out! Heres hoping Robotech will rock!! Maybe they should do M.A.S.K next! LOL!!
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 8:36 pm
LOL! I’m not seeing this movie! :)
Posted on November 17, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Hands down the worst movie I’ve seen this year. I even went in to it with super low expectations and still came out regretting that I wasted two hours of my life watching this crapfest. Basically they made a stupid action movie, then slapped on G.I. Joe names and killed my hopes for a fun night reliving my childhood.
The story was dumb, and the action, while somewhat bearable, was a complete mess at certain times. But what wins the prize was the horrible acting. Wayans and Tatum completely killed it. Tatum’s monotone, wooden voice reminded of John Cena, another horrible actor. Wayans character was the typical black sidekick that you can’t take serious….full of stupid one-liners from beginning to end, always trying to pick up a woman.
Change the character’s names and this would have absolutely nothing to do with G.I. Joe.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.