Review – G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Wow, I just noticed the tagline on this poster is "Evil never looked this good." positioned right under the bad girl's ass. Nice.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Wow. I haven’t seen a movie this stupid since … well, I can’t even think of anything this dumb. Except possibly something involving Dolph Lundgren. Where to begin … (oh, and there will be spoilers, because honestly, if you actually want to to see this movie than I doubt you’ll care if the plot twists are ruined.)

If I was leery going in, I started to get really worried about the possible waste of the next two hours when the movie began with a scene set in 1641. Wow, so we’re setting up that much of a backstory? Really? Alright. I’ll roll with it, give it a chance. This could be important later on, right? No. It’s not. It’s the set up for only two things – a hatred of the French that doesn’t even seem that passionate but leads to Paris becoming the testing grounds for one of the bad guy’s missiles; and some stupid bits with a metal mask. Therefore, this initial scene is stupid, cheesy, and unnecessary (a common theme for this movie, as I soon discovered.)

Well, it didn’t get any better from there. Once we enter the “not too distant future” we learn that apparently everybody speaks and acts like wooden dummies in this future. I mean, my god, the acting is terrible. Not that they had great writing to work with, but come on. I wasn’t expecting much from many of the actors attached, but there are some decent actors scattered throughout the movie, and do they deliver? Not really. It’s like they caught the stupid disease that the movie seems to be infected with. (I mean, Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing Commander Cobra?? Dear god, why would you do this, man? You always say how picky you are with scripts and directors … this made the cut?) The attempts at humor almost make me want to laugh in that they are so not funny, but you can easily tell it’s meant to be. They could have been mildly funny but everything goes terribly wrong in delivery. Serious moments are stupidly serious, overacted in the worst way. The story itself doesn’t help these funny/serious moments either; everything is so contrived and cliché, it makes me cringe. And laugh. Yeah, lots of laughter generated by this movie that I doubt was intended.

Did I mention that the entire movie is horribly contrived? Well I’ll say it again because … wow. How many “huh, small world” coincidences can we cram into the story? Try and follow: main good guy was once engaged to main bad girl (thanks, helpful flashback); her dead brother that caused the rift between good guy and bad girl turns out not being dead but is in fact the mastermind behind all the chaos; (there’s so much more, but I won’t get into it here). Oh, and if that’s not enough, there’s also a second story line about the two ninjas in the movie. Yes, there are ninjas. Now I will definitely admit that the ninjas themselves are cool. (The evil one who always dresses in impeccable white, that’s some cool costume design.) They aren’t necessary in the slightest in the movie, and their backstory of betrayal as children turning them into the enemies they are now – really unnecessary. Even if there was that backstory, can’t we just wonder why they know and hate each other? Leaving them as mysterious ninjas? Oh no, we get yet another flashback to 20 years ago in Tokyo so we can see first hand why these two minor characters hate each other. Awesome, thank you movie. This flashback does have a great moment that proves as always that no one wins with a head butt.

And now, about 20 painful minutes into the movie, we’re off to the GI Joe headquarters, a secret government group that apparently crosses national lines recruiting Brits, Moroccans, and the like, but seems to take their orders from our president. Yay implied superiority! It is amusing how the program is so secret and since apparently nobody else knows anything about what’s going on, once the Joes are finished with a mission, of course causing some destruction and disturbance along the way, they are often detained by the local police. Even the secret service arrest one of our Joes right after he saves DC from destruction. I hope they clear up any arrest records these guys acquire in the line of duty. Oh, did I mention that the GI base is located under the deserts of Egypt? Yeah. Cuz the Egyptians love us Americans so much, they don’t mind us setting up shop under the sands.

Now we get to meet the GIs themselves, sweet. This means gratutious training sequences and fancy gizmos. Of course, we’re only interested in the three or four really important ones, the rest are just meat in the room, fatigues used as scenery. One of these important GIs is surprisingly (ha) a hot woman who apparently has magic healing powers (after a fight with bad girl, she is covered with cuts and scrapes all over her face, which are miraculously gone, not even a memory of a scar, in the very next scene that is maybe the next morning?). Can’t have your secret military operation without some tail running around. She’s not good for much either, she often runs out into missions minus her GI suit, which is the whole point of them being in the program, they wear the special suits that accelerate them and make them all that they can be and then some. Should we put on this super suit so we don’t die when running into the mayhem to save our friends who are wearing the protective suits? No, of course not, they do nothing for her figure. She really only in the movie for a few catfights and the occasional helpful shot at just the right moment.

Anyway, back to the story. The bad guys of course discover the secret GI lair and break in to steal back these evil badass warheads the GIs were guarding. These warheads are full of nanomites that like to cause lots of destruction, eating metal and such. These are handy little buggers, not only do they destroy shit, but our evil mastermind (who, honest to god, speaks in the most horribly cliché gravelly voice) reprograms these nanomites to do almost everything – they turn a man’s face into metal, they heal burns (not his of course, otherwise he doesn’t fit into the tortured evil scientist mold), they even get injected into their “recruits” to cut off any pain and control their minds. Remote-controlled army. Nifty.

So now the GIs have to get the warheads back. Off to Paris, where they cause lots of car accidents in a chase that ends in the trailer-worthy scene showing the collapsing of the Eiffel Tower. This is followed up by a scene in the White House where an advisor tells the President that “the French are a little upset.” And yes, the GIs get detained by French police.

Meanwhile, we’re shown a sneaky little scene in which one of the bad guys is injected with nanomites to begin facial reconstruction, giving him the ultimate disguise. Whoever could he be imitating? Could this factor into the master plan somehow? Could they insert any more ‘subtle’ hints about who he’ll be in the script? (I’m sure they could try.) Don’t worry, we get to see him again later. Well, not actually ‘see’ of course, because they apparently spent all their CGI money on the nanomite bombs, extremely unnecessary Matrix-like slow-motion, car crashes and underwater lairs (yes, the bad guys operate in a base under the polar ice cap) that they apparently couldn’t spring for a split screen shot. After the bad guys go down, eliminating their evil plot to replace the president with a double (oh no, spoiler), I thought they were going to just forget about this guy. I wouldn’t put it past the movie. Thankfully, the movie actually does remember him, though I’m sure this is more of a setup for a sequel than to be clever. The movie’s too stupid to pull off clever.

The movie wraps up with both an airborne chase after two of the launched nanomite missiles (saving Moscow first, leaving the missile streaming toward Washington, DC for last so it can be more dramatic) and an underwater battle between the GIs and the Vipers (these are those nanomite-infused soldiers the bad guys made). Oh, and our main good guy chasing the bad guys, foiled for a minute by a closed hatch underwater, but never fear. Their submarine has a TomTom so they can quickly calculate an alternate route. There are a few complications in the airborne chase since apparently the top of the line jet they stole from the bad guys has to weapon controls, it’s all voice-activated (stupid design) but it’s not working. But wait! The head bad guy is Scottish, so the plane must be programmed in Celtic. Thank god we have our sexy redheaded Joe-ette, she speaks Celtic. Of course. Meanwhile, our ninjas have a battle royale, in which the evil ninja dies far to easily, major letdown. The ten-mile thick ice pack over the bad guy base is blown up causing what I guess was supposed to be climatic, but lacks a little pizzazz since it’s underwater. Look out, that ice is slowly floating down at you!

Then, in the final scenes, we’re shown what is obviously meant as set up for another movie, god help me. Our evil genius turns the bad guy leader into a mindless Viper, but with his very own metal face (and wow does it look fake, awesome special effects guys), and donning his own version of the Vader mask, becoming Commander Cobra. Da da dum! Of course, not even five minutes after this all happens, they’re caught by the GI army and thrown into thick metal tubes with laser bars. There’s nothing so menacing as men in handcuffs throwing out lines like “this has only just begun.” I’m shocked they didn’t let Cobra throw in an evil MWAHAHAHA!

Well hooray, the Joes have saved the day. And now they’re dramatically and slowly walking in a line with the wind in their hair through the GI base, off to another mission, which no doubt will SAVE THE WORLD. again. *sigh* so dumb.

I’m actually proud of myself for sticking it out and watching that whole damn thing (1:57 running time, jesus, why was this not a simple hour and a half?) but honestly, I had to see for myself just how much stupidity they could cram into one movie. Answer: more than enough.