"G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" Movie Review

The latest action-figure inspired movie is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (PG-13). When an arms dealer/manufacturer (Christopher Eccleston) decides to go rogue, an elite special forces unit is called upon to protect the planet. Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Rachel Nichols, Sienna Miller and Dennis Quaid co-star in the movie. Stephen Sommers directs.

Andy: As a child I was a huge fan of both the G.I. Joe action figures and the animated series, so I was initially very excited about the live action blockbuster. Upon seeing the previews for the movie my excitement waned drastically. The good news is that G.I. Joe is not completely bad, as the trailer suggested it might be. Instead its only not good – the standard summer movie fare that is entertaining, but not substantive.

Ryan: Much like Transformers 2 one can check their brain at the door upon watching G.I. Joe. But generally speaking that's really where the similarities stop. Don't get me wrong, G.I. Joe is cinematically ridiculous but it's not ridiculously bad, boring and offensive as Transformers 2. Granted G.I. Joe is the kind of movie where a headache will develop if one stops and thinks about it. The movie makes no sense but for a mindless summer popcorn flick I give it passing marks.

Andy: It is true that the plot of G.I. Joe is basically irrelevant. But in many ways, that suggests that the movie is keeping true to its roots. G.I. Joe was always just a vehicle for ridiculous characters to get into equally ridiculous action sequences. The cartoon also served as propaganda for the U.S. military, which the movie surprisingly (and refreshingly) avoids for the most part. So the fact that G.I. Joe aims low may not be reason enough for many people to watch it, but it does seem to achieve most of its objectives.

Ryan: Barring the needless flashbacks and absurd opening scene I found about two-thirds of the movie to be generally entertaining. The G.I. Joe cartoon was never that serious and I think the filmmakers did a decent enough job in capturing that nuanced tone. There are nuggets thrown into the film that will satisfy fans of the cartoon and action figures and the movie does try to explain (or at least put into a believable context) the possibility of an evil army like Cobra existing. Whether or not one buys that premise will go a long way in determining whether or not one likes or dislikes the flick.

Andy: The flashback sequences definitely are the movies weakest points. We don’t really need fifteen minutes worth of screen time devoted to the origins of peripheral characters, and the fact that we get so many of them, often awkwardly inserted into the movie, significantly detracts from the good things the movie does within the action sequences. Coupled with Channing Tatum’s total lack of gravitas, this is a movie that has major problems in spite of adequate action.

Ryan: Obviously with a movie like this one isn't looking for award winning performances. But with the critical success of genre pictures in the past few years there's no question that the bar's been raised. Disappointingly there are no breakout performances in the movie. If anything the performances in the film that were borderline noteworthy (Wayans and Miller) were counteracted by lackluster performances (Tatum and Eccleston). Again I'm not expecting Oscar caliber work but in movies of this sort a cool noteworthy performance can significantly enhance a film.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is able to live up to ridiculously low expectations to receive a C.