Trevor A Mueller Presents…

Movie Review: GI Joe The Rise of Cobra (2009)
Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christopher Eccleston, Sienna Miller, Byung-hun Lee, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park, Channing Tatum, Arnold Vosloo, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid
Plot: After an opening sequence that doesn’t make much sense and really has no bearing on the plot of the movie, a loose story is put together where a mysterious group of armored soldiers lead by a chick in a cat suit and glasses try to steal nano-warheads that can eat anything…until you deactivate them. With a device. That fits well on a hip in close ups.

Basically there is no plot to the movie, but there are some fun action sequences. And that’s about the only good thing about the movie. Because the characters don’t make sense, and like the Transformers movies, basically the history of the characters and series has been thrown to the four winds. Also, Snake Eyes has a mouth. He still doesn’t talk, but he has a mouth on his face mask. I’m sure the same idiot who thought it would be a good idea to give Optimus Prime a mouth wanted to give Snake Eyes a mouth too. The reason I heard was because “it humanizes the character better.” I mean, 20+ years of the cartoon shot and countless comic books didn’t allow the character to be humanized in the eyes of the audience.

By the same logic, a blind character wouldn’t be able to be humanized. But I digress, it’s stupid logic and a poor decision.

But the point of the movie, like the point of the cartoon, is to make toys and sell them to kids. And Stephen Sommers, say what you will about the movies he directs, have some fun and exciting action sequences. Like X-Men 3, I think the director of this flick got a lot of crap because his name is front and center on the picture. It’s not the directing that made this flick terrible – it was the writing.

Creative Writing 101 mistakes are rampant throughout this flick, from the cheesy dialogue to the terrible characterization. In fact the only performance that shines through is from the Waynes brother. And I guess Dennis Quaid does a decent job of playing General Hawk. But there are really no memorable character moments in the flick – or any snappy one liners. The best exchange of dialogue between hero and villain is this:

Bad Guy: “I’m going to make you very unhappy.”
Good Guy: “I’m already unhappy.”

Yeah, and the dialogue only gets worse from there.

My recommendation: If you’re drunk and need something to watch, fast forward through any scenes that don’t have ass kicking and enjoy the high octane chase scenes through the streets of Paris in the Master Chief armor. Because seriously, the designs for the movie looks like they were recycled from xbox video games…..