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GI JOKE - What a waste
G.I. Joe: Two hours wasted
Movie Trailer: G.I. Joe
Directed by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns), G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra sees the elite G.I. Joe team gear up with the latest in spy and military equipment will take on corrupt arms dealer Destro and the mysterious Cobra organization.
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The cast of G.I. Joe includes, from left, Channing Tatum, Dennis Quaid, Saïd Taghmaoui, Rachel Nichols, and Marlon Wayans. Email story
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Subscribe to the Star's weekly movie update Aug 07, 2009 06:35 AM
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Peter Howell
Movie Critic
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
(Out of Four)
Starring Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Dennis Quaid, Marlon Wayans, Lee Byung-hun and Christopher Eccleston. Directed by Stephen Sommers. At theatres everywhere. (PG)
There are all kinds of wild and noisy machines in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the war toy turned cartoon turned motion picture that is now rotting minds in multiplexes everywhere.
The one new gizmo we could sorely use, however, is sadly lacking. That would be a time machine that could magically restore the two hours lost by anyone unlucky or foolish enough to waste money on this wretched excuse for entertainment.
It is possible that never before in the annals of cinema has so much destruction been depicted on screen to so little purpose, unless you count brain or ear damage. Neither the clumsy good guys – "the Joes" as they're risibly called – nor the clownish bad guys seem to have a clue as to what they're doing, apart from blowing up as many objects and people as possible.
No wonder Paramount Pictures refused to show the film to serious critics, limiting advance screenings to drooling fanboys who would agreeably drive up the Rotten Tomatoes score in exchange for access and a bucket of popcorn.
If nothing else, this exercise in ballistic bathos sets to rest the theory about chimps with typewriters being able produce Shakespeare if given enough time and bananas. They couldn't do the Bard, but they evidently penned G.I. Joe – although there a few humans blamed for the deed, chiefly Stuart Beattie, who co-wrote the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
The direction is credited to genre hack Stephen Sommers (The Mummy), but the citation seems wholly unwarranted. What, pray, did Sommers actually do? The picture is little more than an endless series of computer-rendered explosions, collisions and incisions, with no discernable effort expended on directing or acting. The theory seems to have been that if you keep things moving at all times, people won't notice that there's no real plot. It didn't work.
In between the flying shrapnel, two grudges are pursued in lieu of a story. The first involves Scots weapons expert James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) who has created a green goo called "nanomites" that can dissolve people, buildings and the entire world, should McCullen get excessively ambitious. He's cheesed because centuries ago, a McCullen ancestor was punished by the French for double-dealing in weapons (insert ironic laughter here).
The other grudge has a leather-clad dominatrix known as the Baroness (Sienna Miller) beating up on a particularly dull grunt named Duke (Channing Tatum). Duke apparently failed in his romantic duties when the Baroness was just a naïve blonde named Ana. Hell hath no fury, etc.
McCullen and the Baroness pursue their intersecting vendettas at length, pausing just long enough to blow up the Eiffel Tower in Paris, as the trailer has already revealed. "The French are pretty upset," an aide tells the U.S. President (a slumming Jonathan Pryce).
This scene serves only to remind us how funny a similar Eiffel toppling was in Team America: World Police, the puppet movie by the South Park boys that mocked this kind of lame material.
G.I. Joe is too dumb to even attempt a few laughs. A scene where a pilot has to speak in Gaelic (I'm not making this up) to voice-operate a jet owned by McCullen is played entirely straight-faced.
There are innumerable supporting players in G.I. Joe, most too tedious to mention. All will be amply represented on toy store shelves when Hasbro, the G.I. Joe toy creator and movie stakeholder, cashes in on the many product plugs.
It must be said that Dennis Quaid, as head Joe boy General Hawk, seems totally at ease with the thought his paycheque will have many zeroes, and he will soon be buying himself a new swimming pool. Good for him. And Miller is reportedly glad to be finally playing a character who is sexy and violent, rather than one who is crazy and pathetic.
Speaking of big payouts, can it be true that Paramount Pictures blew $175 million (U.S.) making this turkey?
If G.I. Joe crashes and burns the way it deserves to, there could be a few studio execs looking for their own army of Joes to protect them from angry shareholders.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainmen.../article/677635
(Who said GI JOE was gonna be amazing? I knew it was gonna be sh*t - YO JOE BITCH!)
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