They’re both full-on toy commercials that just happened to have a story, and the villains are definitely Saturday morning fare, if a bit more violent and ruthless.
Is it a good fun, popcorn flick?
Meh.
I’d agree to that statement if the characters didn’t come across so bloody flat and dull.
The film starts off with a bit of a short history lesson about Destro’s family, or “clan”, the McCullens; apparently, arms dealing has been running in the family for a very long time.
After which, we pick up in the near future, where the present day McCullen (Chris Eccleston) is explaining new “nanomite” technology at a conference produced by his company, “M.A.R.S.”; General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) is in attendance.
Cut to our two main characters at a military type base; Duke (Chantum Tanning) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) whose team is charged with transporting the nanotech to its location.
Of course they’re ambushed en route by the bad guys The Baroness (Sienna Miller) and gang, who of course are after the nanotech themselves for nefarious reasons that I won’t spoil here.
During the fight, the GI Joe team appears and joins the fray, of which is very reminiscent of the old cartoon, in that energy weapons seem to be the norm instead of actual bullets.
The difference is this time, people actually get hit.
Unfortunately, The Baroness and her men, including the oddly white-pajamaed Storm Shadow escape, but the nanomite technology is safe, which the team, now along with Duke and Ripcord transport to Joe HQ somewhere in the desert in Egypt.
There, Duke and Ripcord decide to join the Joe team, mostly because Duke has a romantic history with The Baroness.
Wait, what?
Well, that’s new.
What follows is the predictable training montage of the duo, with occasional light comic relief from Wayans, as was to be expected, but not necessarily desired.
From there, action takes over; explosions, accelerator suits, and enough bad CGI to pack a first generation Playstation 2 g
ame.As a matter of fact, the special effects and the acting are probably the two main things that pulled me out of this film so much, and keep me from recommending it.
Duke especially, whose presence and acting remind me much of the Star Wars prequel trilogy in terms of stiffness and cardboard portrayal.
This, on top of some inconsistencies in the film also hamper the overall effect; case in point; the bad guy soldiers are injected with special nanomites that render them without fear, or sense of pain.
Yet, when one gets chucked down a shaft at one point in the film, he screams like a little girl who just wet themself.
Fearless, indeed.
Among other issues with the story is the pacing; the main story moves pretty good and brisk, yet badly timed and abrupt flashbacks grind things to a halt in a second.
Some other issues I have are probably nitpicking, such as the mouth on Snake Eyes’ mask, which still creeps me out, and the amazing fact that apparently ice sinks.
The main villain of the film, first introduced as “The Doctor” is kind of like “Vader Light”, sporting a breathing mask, and somewhat deep evil rasp of a voice, his actual identity is pretty much broadcast from the get go.
Yet another thing that falls amazingly flat; any surprises and twists in the story aren’t surprising at all; they’re kind of a “duh” obviousness, that when the surprise or twist is revealed, it holds almost no weight what so ever, especially to any fans of the original property and cartoon series.
As a matter of fact, I found the final twist of the film in the last scene to be such a blatant rip-off of the first X-Men film, that I just rolled my eyes when I suppose I was supposed to be saying aloud: “Oh, no! Really?!”
Luckily, the plot isn’t jumbled, it moves pretty swiftly from each point in the film to the next, which is one solid plus I guess to the film’s credit.
Unfortunately, I was left feeling so disappointed and with a feeling of apathy towards everything I had just seen, that that credit is sadly moot.
And that, I suppose sums up my feelings on the Joes first outing in Hollywood; not angry, not happy, just apathetic.
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