G.I. Joe - the movie of the comic of the toy of...war!

i came into this review wanting to lump this movie with the transformers 2 movie and be like STOP RAPING THEE FRANCHISES OF MY CHILDHOOD (the 80s) YOU FUCKING UNORIGINAL WHORES@#! i mean, when i saw transformers 2 i learned that megan fox's sexuality transcends humanity and even effects dickless robots. i believe philip dick once mused "do androids dream of electric sheep?" well he was off. he should have been musing "do robots dream of fucking megan fox?" incidentally, i'm with howard stern when it comes to megan fox: for the good of humanity, nobody should fuck megan fox for 4 months just to let her know that she's not all that otherwise her unwarranted superstardom will create some sort of superbitch of the likes hollywood hasn't seen since... well the last time it opened its eyes.

so with my motief long dead, let's get into the movie. it opens up with some obligatory backstory in scotland that gives you the heritage of what will eventually be called cobra (it's the title of the movie. did you know the eiffel tower falls down too? you did. don't lie) and we've got a shift to a weapons dealer making a sales pitch and god bless it's christopher eccleston and that's one thing this movie has done proper. they went and got the 9th doctor to play a central role in this film, and our boy eccleston does not disappoint. given this kind of mega-american-summer-blockbuster stage, eccleston plays a character who is evil as shit yet endearingly badass to the point where i was rooting for him cuz really all of the heroes are stereotypes. let's start with the basics:

duke: the idyllic american soldier who had everything until one horrific day his fiancee's brother had to go into a building and like... oh no. he couldn't face his fiancee, who was now without a brother and a lover. whatever will she do?!@ will her soul find redemption?!@ (you're at a major american movie: you know the answer)

ripcord: when this movie starts chuggin down the tracks you're like "whoa, what is marlon wayans doing here?!" and it becomes obvious: the jive-talking sidekick to not just provide the best comedic performance in the movie, but also to toss the brothers a bone. for the record, he does get his white girl and by the end of a movie there's lighthearted jokes about him getting arrested.... again. they also give the black guy the cadillac of fighter jets, so i was waiting for him to light up a newport 100 and be like "tell ol girl i'm fiddin'ta hit that after i blow this shit up but for now this player's gotta put in some work" marlon wayans doesn't make the movie, nor will he ruin it for you either. he's entrenched in the harmless black-guy sidekick role.

raw hide: the big bad foreign black guy who doesn't like the two new recruits (duke and ripcord give us the "fish out of water" treatment meant to slowly ingratiate us to teh world of gi joe and their badass equipment). this guy doesn't do much other than talk shit and look imposing and have a few cutaway shots in vessels he's piloting, so he's imminently disposable. they give him a few badass poses with assault rifles soundtracked by uplifiting rock music: i think i'mma go join the marines now bye.

general hawk: dennis quaid fucking mails it in and plays a caricature of a caricature of a caricature of a general and speaks with a grizzle that would make sam elliott proud. he's literally barking out cliches nonstop, fare such as "you don't ask to join gi joe. YOU GET ASKED!@" then again, he was served up "whoever you are, whatever this unit is, i want in" as a setup, so with such standard military-dolt conversation i spose you get what you asked for. how about "we're the alpha dogs. when all else fails, we don't" and of course, he was under contractual obligation to decree "knowing is half of the battle" truth be told, i was actively rooting for his whole death during the movie.

scarlett: the supersmart supertough take no shit intellectual object of marlon wayans' attention. she annoyed the living shit out of me, especially as the movie set out to make her vulnerable and open her up to a hot beef injection of the wit-seething dark meat that is marlon wayans' majestic cum-excalibur. for all the feminist movement has done can do and will do, there will always be movie characters like scarlett to keep women in check. can i get a high five from all my old crusty fat white rich republicans in the room?!@

snake eyes: actually, i cant knock snake eyes in the movie. they did him justice, he's the badass that he was in the show, his backstory shows why he's justified and consequently unstoppable, and whenever you see him he's fucking shit up. i said that if snake eyes were to speak at any point in the movie that i'd walk out of the theatre, but you only hear him say one word as a child when he takes his vow of silence. proper. you never see his face, but you're not supposed to. he stands for much more than the face of a mere man. tally ho, movie producers, you did this one right.

you can clearly see that these characters not named snake eyes suck ass and there's no emotional investment besides wanting marlon wayans to hit the redhead, so let's talk about the two good characters:

baroness: sienna miller with black hair in black leather with black sunglasses (in teh dark, no less) with assault rifles?!@ sign me up. they do an admirable job of smooshing up her tits so she looks really fucking hot and you're like yeah. and when eccleston wants to hit it you're like yeah. but then you realize taht her being the ex-fiancee of duke is going to lead to the most obvious tired plot-arch in the world. you know what happens. i'm not going to tell you, it's made so plainly fucking obvious and like, basically, just enjoy the shit out of sienna miller in this movie. that's the goods right there.

destro: he's some sort of mccrackenstein scottish dude or whatever, and christopher eccleston owned it. he carried himself with such a swagger of unlimited confidence and not even pure evil, but you could see what he's doing and yeah it's plenty evil but damned if i didn't want it to work. i mean to have this movie enlist christopher eccleston and give him the head bad guy role where his first priority is to give a giant fuckyou to france by wiping paris off of the map?!@ now i'm not british even tho sometimes i wish i was (the electronic music is so much better over there, not to mention the wit) but like i think there's a pretty hearty disdain between britian and france and to see the scotsman go and take out france while telling a deadly ninja to go over to sienna and say "i'm under orders to kill anyone who touches you, especially your husband" PIMP PIMP FUCKING PIMP man that line is so awesome, and it doesn't let you down either. eccleston rubs it into duke whenever he can, and just like, i was so fucking happy to see christopher eccleston get some big american movie love and i'll be damned if my guy didn't knock it out of the park, tally ho.

oh yeah and there's an evil ninja dude who is the antithesis of snake eyes and there's backstory there for you and rah rah.

so let's get into the movie itself:

you're coming to this movie to see CGI insanity, you want to see metropolises destroyed, you want to see hot people shooting big bad weapons and blowing shit up like collateral damage is only a shit schwarzenegger flick. speaking of, is it just me or like if you work for one of these organizations and you're a grunt soldier, is your only job to get slashed sliced shot blowed up or just plain ol killed real good?!@ there's endless hordes of anonymous soldiers who meet their untimely death in this movie, and hell there's even an epic shot of an underwater battle where it looks like two groups of giant sperm are about to duke it out. that amazed me. oh and that leads me to another point, i think this reminds me of something roger ebert would say so forgive my unoriginality, but it needs to be said: anytime you see an underwater fortress factory city or anything in a movie, you are going to invariably see some sort of an "oh shit this place is getting self/destructed and we need to get out of here * cue water rushing in *" it's inevitable. this is a rule for major american cinema: you don't show an underwater fortress unless you plan to massacre it during some hot action scenes later on. one other thing i picked up on was that everyone had to pair up when they fought, like the ninjas go at each other, scarlett and baroness go at it, and they meet up for the dance oh so many times. by and large tho the CGI is impressive and i liked the feel of these battles far more than the transformers.

now when you've got a movie chock full of military stereotypes running around with super high tech weapons fucking each other if not the enemies and this backstory that reason and rah rah rah, you know the actual interpersonal drama is going to blow. the scenes where marlon wayans macks the redhead, the backstory that sets up the baroness' brazenly inevitable story arch, hell even cameos by brendan fraser and jonathan pryce... basically anything that doesn't involve christopher eccleston and/or some sort of asskicking slows down it to a typical-american-movie halt, where we've got so many stereotypes and this forced love-interest angle that supposedly "humanizes" it for "audiences" and "mass appeal" but i mean alls i gotta say is that while i understand it and actually put up with it quite well during the movie, my kind of "mass appeal" is by gangstarr, you know!?@ but i get it, the kind of perspective i've got just isn't financially condusive to making profitable american cinematic experiences, so you have to take these contrived plot... well contrivances and roll with them and accept them for what they are. in this movie you're at worst 5 mins away from eccleston showing up or something blowing up so you could do a lot worse.

overall, i have to confess that i enjoyed this movie for what it is. i came into this movie expecting it to suck like transformers/2 and i wanted to rip the media conglomerates for being lazy and reviving 80s childhood brands figuring that children of the 80s are approaching or at 30 now and they've got kids so if they shove out movies and toys and products that are familiar to the parents, they're more likely to use that brand appeal and comfortability to buy the shit for their kids. i mean i get it, but i fucking loathe it. part of being nostalgic is pining for things that don't exist anymore, not some souped up super suit wisecracking marlon wayans redeux. oh by the way i can't leave this review without saying the supersuits suck i hated them and they are wholly unnecessary in this movie. you spend an hour setting up our two protagonists as these incredible badasses and then you give them invincible suits that essentially make them mecha-superman!?@ fucking weak. you didn't need it. that said, by the by i surprisingly enjoyed this and give it a thumbs up, meaning to sneak in a flask come in blazed and expect the movie to be fun-bad and it'll be fun and you'll be like "wow, that wasn't that bad." now if you come in expecting cinematic greatness or a truthful reworking of vague childhood cartoon memories, especially if you're a purist for the canon of GI JOE, well then you'll be disappointed. take my advice and you'll have a fun time @ the movies, only amplified tenfold if you're a doctor who head like i am.