G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Rating: 6/10

Tonight Esther and I braved G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. We went in expecting an average, run-of-the-mill, weak plot, CGI heavy summer blockbuster and we weren't disappointed. The movie was decent and moderately entertaining. I wouldn't go quite so far as to call it good but I will call it watchable.

For the uninitiated, the story revolves around a top secret NATO military group (no "Real American Hero" here) trying to stop a mysterious, unnamed organization from destroying a few capitol cities with a weaponized form of nanotechnology designed to eat metal. Yup, that's pretty much it. Most of it was as cliche as expected. I did think that Christopher Eccleston's transformation from McMullen to Destro could have been made more interesting but it still worked for the most part. Suspension of disbelief will help but at some point we just need to stop and say "wtf?" Walking over arctic ice w/o special clothing? Sinking ice? A soldier flying a jet that he's never seen before and miraculously figuring out the voice commands based on the heritage of its designer? What is this, the Matrix?

With few exceptions the acting was what it needed to be. Channing Tatum was good as Duke. I typically like Dennis Quaid and he didn't disappoint as Hawke although his part was pretty minimal. Marlon Wayans played a convincing Ripcord and his comedy wasn't over the top; no "In Living Color" humor here. I have to admit that I wouldn't mind seeing Rachel Nichols (Scarlett) in a few more films either ;) I walked out of the theater wondering why Brendan Fraser and Arnold Vosloo had cameos then I remembered that it was directed by Stephen Sommers and he was just giving his Mummy stars a job.

The dialog was bearable for most of the movie with very little that was memorably stupid. The shout-outs to the original cartoon did seem really forced though, particularly the "knowing is half the battle" line as delivered by Dennis Quaid. Something about his body language at the time gave me the feeling he was thinking something along the lines of "I can't believe I'm saying this" as he said it. The remainder just seemed to be scattered randomly throughout the movie wherever there was room.

The bottom line is that if you like summer blockbusters and/or generic popcorn flicks G.I. Joe is worth a viewing even if it's a rental but don't expect too much.

** SPOILER ALERT **
As an aside, Roger Ebert said in his review that he thought there were four missiles and the plot forgot about one of them. There were actually four warheads but only three missiles. The first warhead was launched in Paris from a rocket launcher while the other three were loaded into the missiles. The three remaining rockets were targeted at Beijing, Moscow, and Washington DC.