Movie Review #17 GI JOE: Rise of Cobra

G I JOE: Rise Of Cobra (2009) Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Directed by Stephen Sommers

Sommers has made some interesting light action films with The Mummy and Van Helsing...both are fine, they won't teach you anything, and you'll forget them quickly, but in the theater with the loud noises and the explosions...they are just about right. He Tackles one of my favorite childhood cartoons here in G I JOE (does that show my age?...wait do I have to worry about things showing my age now?...Ok settle down). I saw this film with a good friend of mine who is the same age as me and complained to him the whole time...Duke is a bad actor!...Where is shipwreck?...Marlon Waynes, whose call was that?...and so on. But by the end he brought me back with "dude it was a cartoon and the movie was like the cartoon...one giant toy commercial"...he was right and sadly I really wanted to play with the toys...even now...I would so buy them if I thought I could still get laid every once in awhile with G I JOE toys in my house. (you can't trust me...don't try). So I will go easy on this film and actually I can tell you now that I would see the sequel (if it does well enough...which almost 100 mill in ten days indicates it will). Let me get the complaints out of the way though...Dennis Quaid who plays Gen Hawk really hams it up in a lackluster performace...in fact I don't know if I have ever seen him this bad in a film. The story is ridiculous and feels like it was pieced together in about ten minutes. Duke is a bad actor (Chris Pine set the bar high in Star Trek...Channing Tatum sucks here...and it blows to not like the main guy) and way too young looking. Ok wait a few more...I must cleanse...Gordon-Levitt who is Oscar bait in 500 Days of Summer is um silly as Cobra Commander here (but maybe in the sequel he will do better) and finally Marlon F-ing Waynes tortures us with some really forced one-liners that are just not funny and painfully awkward. Ok, Ok I feel better now...despite all that G I JOE is actually very watchable. Snake Eyes (Ray Park...of Darth Maul fame) and StormShadow(Byung-hun Lee) are awesome. The Baroness Sienna Miller) and Scarlett (Rachel Nichols) are both smoking hot and Destro (played well by Christopher Eccelston) steals most of the scenes he is in (not that he competes with anyone with any acting chops here). The story goes like this, Duke(Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Waynes) get caught up delivering a secret weapon to someone, and the JOE's come in to help...then they recruit them and...well whatever its a silly story. I could write you a novel explaining it and you still wouldn't get it...because it makes no sense( I thought knowing was half the battle?...they all look confused in this film)...however Zartan (played by the guy who played the Mummy in The Mummy) ends up being a vital character...and Cobra Commander ends up with his mask on by the end, the rest is not important. It is well paced and the action is pretty good. I like the training scenes but there probably should have been more, and there is a nice surprise in there as well. I assume there will be more characters added on if they make more movies as some biggies were missed (Flint, Shipwreck, Roadblock...where are you?). All in all the sets and costumes were pretty cool, and the characters held it together enough to keep you in it. The vehicles and the nifty JOE weapons were pretty cool, and again if I was a kid I would live in Toys R Us after I saw this. You won't understand it, you probably won't like Duke, and you will wonder how A terrorist group was able to build a superstructure fortress under the water with nobody noticing...but whatever...G I JOE is worth seeing if you are a fan of the cartoon, and if you are going to see it, make sure its on the big screen. I recommend this action movie to the hardcore fans, and those of you who have young teenage boys as kids and money to spend on toys.

(The Shawshank Scale 1-10) Um the Baroness and Scarlett, Paris getting attacked, and Destro, Cobra Commander, and Zartan all vying for power are enough to earn a respectable 6.0 for The Real American Hero's...however I expect more from the sequel...but if it ends up dropping off like Fantastic Four part 2 did...it's over for me. (I'm keeping my action figure receipts just in case)

Food For Thought: Sommers has a disaster flick coming out next year called When Worlds Collide. Miller has Hippie Hippie Shake coming soon and Quaid looks to redeem himself by playing former President Bill Clinton in The Special Relationship coming in 2011.