Since I’m more of the “G.I. Joe” guy around here, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that there haven’t been any reviews or input on G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Why would anyone else but me subject themselves to eyeball torture if they didn’t have to? Personally, I put it off for as long as I could, but this weekend I finally decided that my duty outweighed any kind of pain I’d suffer from having to watch this thing. By the time the credits finally rolled I was surprised to find that I kind of liked it.
Spoilers after the jump!
Okay, before you start unleashing your nerd rage I do have to say that almost all the character development and most of the plot was garbage. I couldn’t swallow the retarded concept that Duke, Baroness, Cobra Commander were all connected so closely, but on the other hand I always thought it was just as dumb that Cobra Commander had been a used car salesmen that had a brother that killed the parents of Snake Eyes in a car accident. Likewise, the idiotic characterization of Scarlett as a smart girl that can’t love because it’s not logical nearly made me vomit my Junior Mints, but really put me over the edge was the needless budding relationship with Ripcord. And making the Baroness the least bit good was a huge mistake and again, completely needless.
Despite all these ridiculous flaws, the was a lot of fun to be had. I enjoyed nearly all the action sequences, except–like almost everyone else–I thought the Accelerator suits were dumb. At least they were only in one portion of the flick. And despite the fact that I couldn’t stand the mouth on the Snake Eyes costume, almost every second he was on screen was gold.
The way a bad movie becomes a “good” bad movie is that it has to be either fun enough in its badness or the “good parts” simply have to outweigh the “bad parts”. The good outweighed the bad enough for me to find it enjoyable, but I don’t know about anyone else.
Now of course, I’d like to hear what you thought in the comments. Are you all lockstep in your hatred in Rise of Cobra or did you find it entertaining, or dare I say, that some of you might have actually liked it?
Monty Python
I agree. There were some stupid bits, and Duke was godawful, but it was a fun movie. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, and thought Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow were pretty much perfect.
Though I've seen some people complaining about stuff that was in the original cartoon.
Newton Gimmick
I quite liked it. Flawed? Definitely. Fun with a lot of Joe qualities? Equally as true. I'm ready for the next one.
Nik
I had a lot of fun watching it, as terrible as some parts were. I liked though.
George
I dreaded watching it, but I did it anyway,though i wasn't a fan. it was entertaining. But it wont win any academy awards.
AnimateTed
I had 0 expectations.. and wound up loving it! AGREE with ALL of your points but you know what it was soooo much fun ! Transformers was equally as dumb, and wasn't half as fun! My friend Kyle put it best – GI JOE was written by an 8 year old, re-written by a 9 year old, and directed by a 12 year old. PERFECT for a movie based on toys!"
Mark
It was okay, I enjoyed it..and so did my friend and he isn't inteested in G.I. Joe at all. There are a lot of things they could have improved…and some of the cast could have been better….and Snake Eyes could have done without the mouth but other that it was a fun film….I prefered it to the first Bay Transformers film.
But now that the characters have been some what established I think they can be a bit more adventurous with the sequeal.
Mario
You know, I couldn't believe how incredibly violent it was. I was shocked that Hasbro let it go all out.
I had a lot of fun watching it, even though it's a really crappy film on SO MANY levels. That was, of course, to be expected, but I really went it knowing that there was no way in hell that it could ever be whatever I wanted it to be, thus, the ride was actually fun & the action was as relentless as any movie I can remember. It just never stopped.
fairplaythings
I was really surprised how much I enjoyed GIJoe. In fact it was a far better movie in my opinion than Transformers: Rise of the Forgotten Guy Who Use to be a Prime but is now Called the Fallen. I think that's mainly because of anticipation. And that I could tell the characters apart.
I thought (particularly after rumour that director had been hauled out to the back alley and shot) GIJoe would be unbearable, and so I went more out of morbid curiousity than devoted loyalty. Having seen two clips at Botcon for Transformers: Electric Boogalo, and enjoyed the first one, I had big expectations that were sadly squished like a bug.
The unnecessary "Hazing of Duke and Ripcord", the convenience of skills coming into use at just the right time (Ripcord's piloting skills, Scarlett's language skills), the weird triangle between the Baroness, Duke and Cobra Commander, I mostly overlooked. I got Christopher Eccleston, Snake Eyes mostly in an original costume, a decent Duke in Dennis Quaid and the surprise of Adabisi as Roadblock… er… Heavy Duty. And I loved the Heavy Duty shout out of "Yo Joe" after they destroyed the underwater base, and various other fan shout outs (the U.S.S. Flagg for instance – there was another one there that was BRILLIANT but it has slipped my mind for now.)
Where I really got upset about the story? Two parts. One, the idea that Cobra has enough money to build an undersea base but needs NATO funding for the nanotech bombs. It would be understandable if the whole point was simply to make NATO aware of the bomb's existence, but that really wasn't it, so I was put off by that. But the worst was the "let's take away the Baroness' free will at the end of the movie and make her a puppet of Rex." Really. That sucked. As did the "And you shall call me Commander" line. Up there with the infamous "NOOOO!" of Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith.
Still. Popcorn fun. The characterization might not have been great but at least I could tell who was who. And Joes acted in character. And EVIL WON, which I totally didn't expect. So I watched it once in the theatre and left not thinking I was going to have to punch the manager in the face. I'll probably grab a fancy box edition during the upcoming DVD release campaign.
Really, it could have been much much worse.
Valo487
It was more enjoyable than it could have been, I wasn't sitting there shaking my head or anything except for a few moments, but at the same time it could have been so much better. I wasn't deluding myself like some online seemed to be by hoping for something along the lines of Saving Private Ryan with ninjas, but there were several little things that seemed to serve no real purpose that took away from the movie. For example, we spend all the movie watching M.A.R.S. become Cobra, and finally at the end when Cobra Commander reveals himself what happens? He gets arrested. It just killed so much of the heat that was built up. And the way Cobra is at the end whenever the sequel comes out they're going to have to brainwash/release from prison/discover a cure for numerous holes in torso for almost all the big names, how did Cobra "rise" when it got so deflated in so little time?
gijoeopinion
I only liked Sienna Miller because I think she's the most beautiful actress ever. The rest was as cheesy as it gets. Oh and the Paris pursuit was cool too. Thanks.
PrfktTear
I enjoyed it. I might even watch it again. I liked it a heck of a lot more than Revenge of the Fallen. It was exactly what it should have been, a live-action cartoon. It wasn't trying to be a serious update or a drama, and didn't have Michael Bay trying to get into the Guiness Book of World Records for the biggest explosion on film…
JediCreeper
I hated all the unnecessary links, or what I call "skywalker syndrome" as Star Wars made it almost essential for every hero to somehow be the result or cause of their main enemy… too many movies do this, and that's probably why I liked Dark Knight so much, because they let the joker be anonymous.. like he should be.. Cobra Commander does not need a real name OR face… (its especially distracting that that face was just seen in the great (500) days of summer…)
*sigh* not the worst thing ever, but a sign that things can (and almost certainly will) get much much worse..
my biggest problem? "the rise of cobra" consists of the 3 most powerful members being immediately arrested and locked up.. yeah.. way to gain power..
Eric Rohr
Been waiting for your review on this one, Paul!
I feel about the same as Nik. Pretty good, so long as you take the good with the bad. And I really think Sienna Miller was perfectly cast as The Baroness. Far as I'm concerned, she owns it. I didn't miss the Russian-sounding accent at all.
I've been spending a lot of time with the old comics (thank you, IDW Publishing) and the cartoon (ditto, Shout Factory) lately, and really, as Paul notes with the Snake Eyes and Cobra Commander link, the cartoon and comics were both far-fetched in the plot department. Maybe all of us were hoping for a "Batman Begins" treatment, which still would have been the better way to go, but all in all, I think the movie can be enjoyed, so long as it is enjoyed in the context of the Hasbro Joes.
LBAM
Loved it. Changes to characters didn't bother me, and it can be argued that the original Baroness from the comics was more "misguided" than "evil" given that she turned from "peace activist" to "terrorist" because she THOUGHT Snake-Eyes had killed her brother….anyway.
Channing Tatum sucked. Sucked whole-heartedly. The "emotions don't exist" bit was some of the worst dialogue ever.
But ultimately I loved it, loved it.
A.J.
I didn't go in expecting a masterpiece of cinema, but I still didn't find the film as enjoyable as I hoped I would. I was hoping at best it'd be as good as The Mummy (a film i have to compulsively watch every time it shows up on cable). There were some fun moments, but also a bit more action movie stupidity than should be warranted (not all action movies have to be idiotic; see Die Hard and RoboCop). Aside from the much-maligned Duke-Baroness-Rex awkward backstory, the whole "McCullen and Rex become Destro and Cobra Commander at the end, and then get arrestest two minutes later" plot outcome was just total bullshit.