This movie is a piece of shit. I am actually angry at it. I am angry that it looked at me in the face, and had the balls to fucking show me the things it showed me. You want to know where I rank this movie in it’s genre? In the same bracket as Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter. Not the animated Street Fighter; the live action one. The one where Guile, an American, is played by a Belgian who can barely speak English.
Here’s the skinny on the plot of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: There are warheads that have nanomites in them. Nanomites eat metal (and everything else, but emphasis was placed on the eating of metal). They also can do other things, such as reconstruct faces and push the venom of a cobra right back out of a person’s arm. They can also be used in mind control. Anyway, Duke and Ripcord have them, Baroness tries to steal them, G.I. Joe saves Duke and Ripcord and the warheads, Baroness and Storm Shadow, et al successfully steal them. There you go. Cobra has not officially formed as a “unit” at this point, like G.I. Joe has, but all they key players are there.
G.I. Joe storyline aside, this movie is just horrible. Really bad acting. I mean REALLY bad. Dennis Quaid must have smelled like brie after filming his scenes. Some of the action sequences were alright, I guess, but mostly they were a horrible mess, some way too long, and completely implausible. The film reeked of standard cheesey action movie formula, what with the needless “funny” lines, such as when the Baroness just shot a machine gun to clear out an area, forces a woman off an elevator and then says, “Nice shoes.” In fact, she gets the award for character with the worst lines. Right after a huge crash, she crawls out and says, “Next time, I drive.” There is the obligatory evil villain sharing his plans with the good guy that has been captured but that he will fail to kill. There is also exposition, casually detailed in akwardly placed dialogue. Can’t forget the montage of people being trained while a stupid song plays (Bang a Gong by T-Rex). There is a long list of things that are wrong factually and in regard to continuity. Too many to list. In lieu of that, here is a small list of things that I hate about it:
1. Rip Cord makes mention of Kung Fu grip
2. Hawk says, “Knowing is half the battle.”
3. Rex says, “This guy is a real American hero.”
4. When Baroness and Storm Shadow steal the warheads, Hawk presses an alarm button on his desk. The other Joes are hanging out, chillin’, and when it goes off, someone yells, “Cobra has the warheads!” Are you fucking kidding me? They made an alarm specifically for that?
5. Baroness has no accent.
6. There is a flashback for every fucking character. Fortunately most of them knew each other somehow, so they combined multiple charcaters’ into one.
7. The casting. Oh my God, the casting.
8. The obvious open door for a sequel, meaning that while I make an hourly wage, there will be rain forests slaughtered to write the paychecks of those involved in another one of these fucking things. I provide more entertainment than this movie.
I don’t really understand why this movie is rated PG-13 and not R. There is a lot of on screen killing and language. There is honestly not one good thing about this movie. Skip it.
January 7th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
8 seems like a very un-OCD number to use for a list, sir.
January 8th, 2010 at 9:33 am
You totally failed to mention Rachel Nichols in this review, sir!
January 8th, 2010 at 10:03 am
You're lucky I mentioned Dennis Quaid. Evreyone involved in this movie should be ashamed of themselves.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:59 am
I quite agree with all above mentioned critiques and would like to add a few. HORRIFIC acting, bad CGI, bad HAIR even, get a hot oil treatment would ya Baroness? Frankly I am insulted that the retards responsible for releasing this steaming pile of crap of a movie thought it passable for a generation brought up watching GI Joe as children. Outraged I am! The only scene that would have even the slightest redeemable quality was the introduction behind the “mask”. The one thing I found remarkable is that the Baroness had like 5? 6? 7? getaway scenes? Among the laundry list of above mentioned insight I would also like to add… I am almost glad the cast was as bad as it was. I would really really hate it if one of my favorites had ended up in this movie to tarnish their career. Thank you, TH
February 4th, 2010 at 1:31 am
Forgot one other thing… I made a comment at the end of the movie, says me, “This is not an adult movie, I can not believe it is rated R, because a little kid might actually appreciate it if it didn’t have all the kill scenes in it” then I wondered, wait, I wonder what the rating is… and low and behold… PG13. Enough said. Terrible. F
September 4th, 2010 at 12:23 am
My thoughts will be as random as this movie:
Mmm, Rachel Nichols. An explosion! Why is Channing Tatum a serious actor? Joseph Gordon-Levitt? What the fuck is he doing here? Another explosion! If normal movies require you to suspend disbelief, this movie is asking you to suspend life itself. More Rachel Nichols. WTF? Is Brenden Fraser here to just up the ante on the shit movie quotient? Oh, I also agree with all of the above points. Seriously, is it that he’s good looking because dude cannot act for shit (watch Dear John for additional proof). How the fuck can they build an entire 30-level base under the polar ice caps without ANYONE FUCKING NOTICING? Approximately 4 million people must have died in this movie. Oh, and an explosion.
FUCK YOU MOVIE!
September 18th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Wait wait wait……Now there can’t be all this hate for a movie based on a TOY LINE. REALLY PEOPLE! I am surprised it was as good as it was. Transformers is easy as they are aliens. But how do you make a GI Joe movie that doesn’t just look like the US Amry fighting terrorist??? Anyone? Have you even seen the cartoons…because I remember people like sargent slaughter, cobra commander turning into a real snake, laser beams, the fact that everything blows up but no one dies, Destro’s face is metal yet he can talk, Cobra has an endless supply of soldiers and tanks, and lets not forget how the joes would show up randomly (like in a kid’s pool) and tell them important lessons. The movie was a cool action movie using a toy/TV line of characters. It did a pretty Damn good job! Was it a great movie no, but most action films aren’t. Its one thing to say the movie is bad but to throw hate its way is another. I can understand a movie based on a comic where the store is already there, to be upset if people screw it up. But again, this is GI JOE LOL!
Last thing, there are a lot of movies rated PG 13 that are a lot worse than GI JOE.
September 18th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
While I agree with you Kenny, most of (if not all) of my review mentions the failures of it as a film itself, rather than plausibility in comparison to a cartoon (which I watched many many times). My main gripe was that, unlike the Expendables, GI Joe was based on a sacred childhood universe and the live action film version should be treated as more than a sub par action flick with piss poor acting and glaring errors. Lasers is fine. Turning in to snakes is fine. Someone setting an alarm off and the rest of the team yelling “Cobra stole the warhead,” is fucking retarded. First off they weren’t even called Cobra yet and secondly how do they know that is what happened? The outlandishness of events that you describe in the cartoon is fine becasue that is what’s happening in that universe. However, bad acting and writing doesn’t occur in universes where people aren’t playing actors and writers. And let’s break formula a bit, it’s GI fucking Joe! Not Commando!
September 28th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I can understand the “cobra stole the warhead” issue, what I don’t understand is why people expected more than what they got. This isn’t the Mario Brothers live action film. This isn’t based on a great book. This is GI joe. All I expected was action, characters based off the toy line/cartoon, and a reason for them being there. I didn’t think there was going to be great acting (look at most action films that aren’t the first Matrix). I didn’t expect a great plot because again, look what their pulling from. I understand if you have a complaint about someone making a movie about something you care about and then not caring enough to want it to be decent. I get that, trust me. I don’t get how you thought it would be remotely better than what it was in terms of an action movie. If it was maybe a war flick that was supposed to be serious, ok fine. I can’t bash a movie that follows the same formula as other movies I like just because its based on something else I like (which is what I gather from the expendables line). It would work with any other movie but GI joe…to me anyways, its like when people complained that 300 wasn’t realistic…
September 28th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
I get your point. We just wanted different things from it I guess. And you’re right, I probably shouldn’t bash it because it didn’t give me what I wanted, but I guess I wanted things that didn’t seemed too far fetched to me. I will tell you this, if they ever get that Voltron movie off the ground, if they screw that up, I hope it are angry about it.
September 28th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
LOL. To tell you the truth, I wanted more but at the same time, its hard to make a convincing movie for these cartoons. Voltron and Transformers are easier because it has to do with aliens, we can make up our own rules and still capture the spirit of the shows. That’s not to say that these movies can’t be better. The hulk (the one that came out in 03 or 04) was a bad movie way before being a bad movie about my fav character. The incredible hulk (that came out in 09) was just that, incredible. I was pissed at the first one and a lot of comic book movies because they are much easier to do. You have a written script that you could copy from lol. I am not sure if GI Joe, ThunderCats, ect. should be made as they are really hard to be believable, even with good acting and decent plots. I still would see them though lol.
September 28th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
I would be on your side 100% and not just 45% if it wasn’t an action film.lol
September 29th, 2010 at 1:22 am
I’m going to have to agree with PBF on this one, even if I don’t necessarily come from the same place.
As a child from the 80s, I was well accustomed with the GI Joe cartoons, action figures, comic books, bedsheets, sippy cups and all of that. I liked it at the time but I was not expecting a jaunt into nostalgia watching this film.
What I did expect was at least a half-assed attempt to create a movie with some amount of sense or effort involved. I received neither and I believe that has much to do with the fact that it is based on the “acclaimed” franchise that preceded it. That is because the filmmakers knew they would draw people in on the name GI Joe so they didn’t even bother to attempt a decent movie otherwise.
Look, action is certainly not Shakespeare but not all action movies are mindless exposition and explosions that beg you to not think about. John McClane from any Die Hard would certainly kick the asses of anyone in this movie because it is grounded in some semblance of reality, not over the top pyrotechnics and lame plot points that may or may not fit with the genesis of the series.
I am done thinking about this movie.