G.I. Joe will make Michael Bay jealous

I’m not sure if I just watched a film or a collection of cutscenes to a very fun, action-packed video game. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is such a computer generated onslaught to the eyes that Michael Bay should be jealous. In fact, you could remove all spoken dialogue from G.I. Joe and probably end up with the same overall experience.

2009 is turning into a year for absolutely lame blockbusters. First we got X-Men Origins: Wolverine, then Transformers 2, now G.I. Joe. Each is more ludicrous than the last, has a plot that’s more nonsensical, and relies even more on CGI graphics and huge fiery explosions to do the heavy lifting where the story fails.

There are no breaks in G.I. Joe. The movie is 99% nonstop action. And that last 1%: it’s filled with shots of cleavage and winning one-liners (you know, stuff like “Knowing is half the battle!”). This is a film that has no time to stop; it has a lot of mandatory action scenes to include and only 118 minutes to get through them all. The most entertaining action sequence in the film is the Delta-6 accelerator suit chase through Paris, France. You know, the one that looked terrible in the trailer. The bad guys steal some rockets filled with metal-eating nanobots (microscopic insect-like robots) and take off in a Hummer H2. The good guys wear these Iron Man suits and chase the baddies through the city, destroying everything in and around their way, all in Matrix-style slow motion. I hope the Joes have an expensive insurance policy, because they have a lot of property damage lawsuits coming their way.

Though money doesn’t seem to be an issue. Both Cobra and the Joes have more space-age weaponry and vehicles than I can count. They also have the two most lavish secret bases I’ve seen. The Joes have a giant underground lair in Egypt, near the Great Pyramids of Giza. (Apparently no one informed them that it was a hot tourist destination.) Cobra’s secret headquarters is a massive underwater city under Antarctica, complete with cable elevator and giant missile tubes. It’s a lair that would make for a great Roger Moore James Bond movie. Or maybe it already was in a James Bond movie—it’s hard to say.

G.I. Joe may as well be a live-action remake of Team America: World Police. In an earlier article, I posted a video that showed G.I. Joe’s trailer side-by-side with shots from Team America. I thought it was a joke, but the comparison is eerily accurate. Team America was written as an over-the-top parody of modern action movie clichés from the guys behind South Park. It’s about an elite squad of soldiers with high-tech weaponry that must fight a terrorist hell-bent on destroying the world (the exact plot of G.I. Joe). The funniest similarity: both General Hawk and Spottswoode, the good team’s leader from each movie, end up in identical electric wheelchairs after their bases are attacked by terrorists.

For those wondering, the entire plot of Top Gun is also in G.I. Joe, as are a bunch of Lost-style flashbacks that lack effectiveness because Dir. Stephen Sommers skips character development this time around. The only actor that looks like he’s having any fun at all is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is unrecognizable as Cobra’s leading mad scientist. The rest of the cast could be replaced by muppets and we wouldn’t know the difference.

So what more is there to say about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra? Some of the CGI was good, some was pretty bad, including a particularly horrid hover plane landing sequence in the desert. Hover planes are just the beginning of the odd vehicles in Joe. Best I can tell, battles are won by whichever side manages to surprise the other with a fancier combat vehicle or bigger plasma cannon. Also, I’m a bit tired of superhero teams always wearing black leather suits (see also: X-Men); is a monochrome wardrobe a movie requirement?

I keep reading that G.I. Joe is made for nine-year-olds, and if we were that age, we’d love it. We were about nine when the cartoon was on the air, right? Well yeah, but this movie is not made for nine-year-olds. In fact, it’s rated PG-13, so they shouldn’t even be seeing it. Like Transformers 2, G.I. Joe does capture the fun, campy premise of its toy line. Unfortunately, like Transformers, it fails to go above and beyond this premise in any way. Instead, it uses only the safest and crudest methods to fill its two hour timeslot.

You can count the millions of dollars being spent on every explosive sequence in G.I. Joe. It’s very transparent. What you won’t spot is anything resembling a real story or good acting. If you want to see this movie, go rent Team America and Top Gun. If you want to watch a great movie with war and explosions, go see The Hurt Locker.

Score: ** out of ***** (Not good. Bad.)

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