G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sienna Miller, Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Marlon WayansDirector: Stephen Sommers
Year of Release: 2009
To call this movie ridiculous is pretty much stating the obvious. So let’s just get the fact that it’s a ridiculous over-the-top two-dimensional movie out of the way. Now, as far as ridiculous movies go, it’s not that bad. It reminds me of the early ’80s/late ’70s Roger Moore James Bond movies like Moonraker where there were crazy, evil baddies with outrageously elaborate lairs, like what Austin Powers would parody. We get the crazed villain, the massively tricked-out headquarters, and crazy gadgets galore. It actually remains true to the original toys in that sense with each weapon is created to outdo the next.
The acting here is a very mixed bag. Christopher Eccleston and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are both brilliant actors who are basically given free reign to cook up the cartoonish villians required by the flm. But Channing Tatum is an absolutely horrible actor who shouldn’t ever be allowed anywhere near a movie that requires even the slightest amount of acting. Even for G.I. Joe he is just plain terrible. I guess in real life he is best friends Joseph Gordon-Levitt and that may be why they are in this movie together. But Joseph Gordon-Levitt has more talent in his eyebrow than Channing Tatum could ever dream to have. Marlon Wayans is of course just playing Marlon Wayans and makes all the required jokes I’m sure he was hired for. I don’t once believe him to be a highly-trained soldier though and his so-called comic relief is pretty cliche and slapstick. Dennis Quaid and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje are just kind of in the background, under-utilized and mostly forgotten. Sienna Miller is passable but I didn’t like the back-and-forth of her loyalties. Baroness is evil, keep it that way.
This movie is a bit of fun, I will admit. And it’s still way better than that god awful Transformers sequel. But it’s pure fluff through and through. And I was a bit surprised by the amount of foul language in the movie. It’s PG-13 but I still would have expected it to be cleaner for a film that is based on a children’s toy and cartoon. Still, not a bad toy movie.
