G.I. JOE is one of Hasbro’s oldest toy lines dating all the way back to 1964. But it really wasn’t until 1982 that G.I. JOE really made their mark on pop culture. G.I. JOE became increasingly popular and soon not only had toys but spawned countless other products such as: kites, board games, comic books, clothing, t-shirts and the list goes on. But by 1987 like every popular fad it eventually died out and so ended the most popular version of G.I. JOE ever. Since then, Hasbro has released several different incarnations based on the G.I. JOE franchise, but haven’t been able to rekindle the popularity they once had. Just like Transformers, G.I. JOE left it’s impact on anyone who grew up in the 80’s; the evidence can be seen all over through the countless sightings of the Cobra insignia, first used for the opposing force to G.I. JOE, known as Cobra. After the release of the movie Transformers, it was only time before we saw a movie based on another very successful toy line. That movie is G.I. JOE : The Rise of Cobra.
Story:
A new weapon is developed by M.A.R.S in affiliation with NATO spending. It is a nano-bot based warhead and upon impact the nano-bots will stop at nothing, consuming anything in it’s path. When a shipment of the new weapon is intercepted by an unknown organization unlike the world has ever seen before. Finding out that the organization has malintent it’s up to a special class of solders known only as G.I. JOE to hunt down and prevent a disaster of global proportions.
Characters:
Since the film is based off of the popular universe of G.I. JOE, the characters included in the film are all based off of the show from the 80’s. Since there are a lot of characters to chose from, a movie franchise like this will never be in short supply of characters.
G.I JOE: On the JOEs side we have; Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Heavy Duty, Karolina Kurkova as Cover Girl, Rachel Nichols as Shana ‘Scarlett’ O’Hara, Ray Park as Snake Eyes (the only character that looks like he was taken directly from the toy line), Dennis Quaid as General Hawk, Channing Tatum as Duke, Marlon Wayans as Ripcord and uncredited appearance from Brendan Fraser as Gung Ho.
COBRA/M.A.R.S: On the opposing side we have Christopher Eccleston as Destro, Byung-hun Lee as Storm Shadow, Sienna Miller as Baroness, Arnold Vosloo as Zartan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander.
Impressions:
Relying only on the trailers of the film, I could tell that this movie was doomed to fail. Everything they threw at you in the previews suggested that all this movie had in common with the 80’s G.I. JOE was the name of both the toy line and the name of the characters in the toy line.To top it all off I saw an ad in the paper saying that Ain’t It Cool News as saying that it was “Great Action Fun” or something like that. For this movie blurb, I cursed Ain’t It Cool news (and after watching the movie I retract my curse). While heading down to the theater, in the back of my mind this would end up being a godawful movie; maybe not as bad as Alone in the Dark, which someone dragged me to go see in the theater, but bad none the less. After you brush off the pointless story of how the name and character Destro came to be, you get zapped fast-forward into the nitty gritty of a pretty close adaptation of G.I. JOE. The movie is filled with weapons, vehicles and situations not unlike those from the cartoon of G.I. JOE. Sure they don’t shoot lasers colored blue and red, which I miss, but they don’t let you down on huge vehicles and gun battles. Your taken from one end of the Earth to the other end, while the movie plays out like one long episode that actually has time to pull off a decent story. I found with the original cartoon the plot was often simple, with no character development and horrible scripting. I’m not saying I hated the cartoon; I love it, but as a kid you don’t catch the same things as you do when your older. There were a few instances in the film which did bother me; there are a lot of flashbacks. But how many do we need? The flashbacks also occured at odd intervals. We get to see the eevolution of Cobra. Of course that’s what this movie is about, but why do we need to be told the story of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow? Why tell us the history behind Destro? If back story is needed, don’t chop it up and scatter the flashbacks throughout the movie; it detaches the audience and forces them to work to get back into the movie. The second is: Cobra Commander. Really? There could have been so many better choices for the character, yet the producers made those choices. One thing I did wish for, which would have been a nice throw back, would be those public service announcements at the end of each GI Joe cartoon episode, where you’re told “Knowing is half the battle.” Maybe in the next film.
Note: If your a fan, like a “Die hard, take no prisoners” fan, you should definitely avoid this movie or any movie based off of the original cartoons you fell in love with. Hollywood producers always change things from the original material, no matter what. When watching a movie like this, forget what you know, and never compare it to the original, no matter what form it’s in. I say if you expected it to be the same, you deserve to be cheated.
