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Movie review: 'G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra'
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G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra/2009 - Directed by: Stephen Sommers
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Christopher Eccleston, Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ray Park
The Plot: Is a tangled nest so bear with me here. The best weapons designer in the world (Christopher Eccleston) creates the ultimate tool of destruction - metal eating nanobots. He then plots to steal his own creation from the governments he made them for. The governments in turn send in the world's best fighting force, codenamed G.I. Joe. G.I.Joe clashes with the rising terrorist organization as they seek to unleash a devastating swarm of nanobots on Earth's biggest cities. And no, Cleveland isn't one of those cities.
The Good: After all these years I still like Snake Eyes. I had this weird feeling through this whole movie like I knew this guy. Even though he never speaks and we never get to see his face, he still felt familiar to me. When I just IMDB'd the movie for fact checking purposes and saw that he was played by Ray "Darth Maul" Park I felt my Snake Eyes infatuation blossom that much further. Ray's still got a move-set that could cut a Jedi Knight down to his knees. Nicely done Mr. Park.
There is this one fight scene in G.I. Joe between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow when they were both about ten years old. (told in flashback) And it seemed really ridiculous watching these two children beat the living sh*t out of each other. These two lads gouge, smack, kick and rain hell down upon each other for five solid minutes. But since the fight had limited animation running through it. And because whoever these two tiny stunt actors were they were both extremely talented, it turned out to be the best scene of this whole enterprise. So there you have it, kiddie kung-fu almost saved the film from being a total waste of time... Onto the bad.
The Bad: And the cobra did rise ladies and gentlemen. Almost out of his seat and up the isle. The big problem with G.I. Joe is the big problem with most of Stephen Sommers movies. The story takes a back seat to the action and what does manage to climb up into the front seat is usually a complete tangle of plot lines and double-criss-crossing character arcs. It's the movie equivalent of getting gum in your hair, or hair in a tub drain. Rise of the Cobra ends up muddled and clogged. It's as if Sommers is re-writing the entire film in post production. I mean he does 95% of the movie in post-production anyway, with all the CG animating his films haul around with them, why not write the movie there as well eh?
My biggest fault with this film is that I couldn't detect a single stand-out reason why the people participating in Cobra were there in the first place. Destro's a terrorist because 370 years ago the French executed his relative? Wah!? Do any of you even know who your family representative was in 1641? If so would you annihilate mankind to avenge their death? And if that doesn't make sense try unraveling the mystery behind Cobra Commander himself - or worse yet The Baroness. She's a villain with a history that could befuddle the most astute comic book scholars. I'm going to pull the reins on discussing this character fully, because I'm sure there's people who want to let the movie unravel for themselves - but believe me, it all ends up just as tangled and clogged as anything else in the film. The Baroness is a marionette to the plot here. And when the plot has no real destination in mind, that marionette gets knocked around a lot. In this case a whole hell of a lot.
Stephen does his best to sum up these characters sordid histories through the use (bordering on "abuse") of tell-all flashbacks. And when he can't explain something he tosses the films biggest script-band-aid - the nanobots - on the problem and almost makes it go away.
So let's discuss these nanobots shall we? They're little robots. They devour metal en masse, sort of recalling the cursed green ghost warriors in Return of the King. (in fact they're exactly like those green ghosties from Rings 3...) But I guess they also can perform mind control, boost the immune system of whoever they're injected into, and can be used as a pretty gawdamn expensive suicide option if you're caught by the enemy. These guys do anything and everything for the evil lords of Cobra Command. Which is why I'm guessing G.I. Joe developed the "Accelerator suit". (what does it do? turns anyone wearing it into an Autobot)
Unfortunately this is the biggest problem with G.I. Joe the film. Nanobots and Accelerator suits remove the human aspect from this film as well as its origins. This sh*t wasn't in the cartoons or on the action figures 20 years ago. It's here because Sommers and Co. wanted this film to look like the Transformers franchise. They forgot that the boys and girls who grew up watching G.I. Joe on television did so because it was full of hundreds of characters - each with their own unique ability - good and evil. If you can just give anyone an Accelerator suit and he could be superhuman (especially Marlon Wayans gawdamnit) - what's so special about Snake Eyes or Snow Job, or even Lady Jaye? Absolutely nothing.
As it stands this film could have any title on the marquee. They just called it G.I. Joe because it would get a few more million suckers in the door.
The Ugly: There's dumb and the there's dumber with a Sommers movie. (or maybe that's Somm and Sommers...?) He'll let fly with anything absurd as long as it looks good. The child-on-child deathmatch only half worked for me because I'd never seen two ten year old boys kick hell out of each other before. But when Cobra decides to "detonate" the ice shelf above his secret underwater Arctic fortress. And all that newly freed ice comes crashing down in titanic hunks and slabs on the Joe team fighting in submersibles around the fortress - I applauded Sommers daring at such a scheme. I still remember the last time the ice cubes in my Coca-cola cascaded down to the bottom of the glass - I'd just never seen it done in a movie before this one.
The Verdict: Rise of the Cobra is random acts of senseless action. It robs ideas from everything you've seen before OTHER than the original G.I. Joe source material. These aren't the characters you knew growing up, they're pawns in another Stephen Sommers Summer Suck-o-thon.
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