GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
From Zanecorpwiki
2010-02-10
Pass.
Summary
It's no small thing that I'm going to call this movie offensive.
The problem isn't that the movie's aimed at 12 year olds; the problem is that it's aimed at 12 year olds and misses badly. They're careful never to show blood or gore, but they on screen death count is easily in the dozens, and the implied body count from mayhem is in the hundreds, if not thousands. The Joes themselves directly kill or at least seriously injure dozens of civilians when they put the two untrained and totally irresponsible lead characters in high powered exoskeletons and proceed to cause a series of high speed traffic accidents.
The fact that the defenders of freedom and justice don't seem at all concerned or even mention this--not so much as as a "be careful"--is offensive. If you're going to have these huge tragedies, you have to stop and acknowledge them. Or else, as the original cartoon did, keep the conflict contained so it's only between Joe and Cobra, leaving the public out except as something which is vaguely threatened, but never actually harmed.
You can't have it both ways, and by mixing it up, you end up with foul grey mush.
Details and Notes
I'm no movie snob. In fact, I like bad movies. I love pointless action films. I can even appreciate special effects. There were scenes in this movie that were good. This could have been a good movie. Like so many "action packed thrillers", it just gave up. Gave up and willingly turned itself into a string of cliches never realizing that when you string together a bunch of bling, it's just tacky. Nothing stands out and nothing makes sense.
Spoilers ahead, but who cares?
The Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow subplot was idiotic. First off, by putting Snake Eyes in a mask, you get no emotion and no sympathy with the character. The guy running around on screen has no connection to the kid in the flashbacks. And Storm Shadow killed his master at the age of 10? Was the master just a buffoon? If so, how did he train the kids? Why didn't anyone notice Storm Shadow was a sociopath? The entire thing was just distracting and added nothing to the story.
If one ham handed attempt to manufacture interest wasn't enough, try two! There's also a connection between Baroness and Duke with a completely predictable "surprise, she's not really bad, just mind controlled" ending. Thank god she overcame her programming--even though no one else ever had even for a moment. Gosh! The dumbest thing about all this is that the character (though I'd blame the director and/or writer, not the actress) doesn't show the least amount of strain or turmoil in overcoming the programming.
It's a little thing, but I'm tired of movies featuring electronic locks where the "nerd" wants to pick it, and the "bad ass" just jams a knife in the keypad and the door opens. Who the fuck designs security systems that are only effective against non-violent intruders?
I was also really annoyed by the whole "commander rallies the troops thing" at the end. Why do you keep shouting "there are 200 Joes on that sub" when none of them are doing anything useful? You should have just left them behind instead of rallying them all for no other purpose but to get in the way.
And the "you thought you got me, but now the entire fleet's going to silently rise up behind me thing"... it's so lame you can't even make satire of it. First off, we just spent the last 10 minutes establishing that Destro and Cobra Commander had been chased by Duke and Baroness to some remote place that was hard, if not impossible to get to, and yet the entire Joe fleet with no knowledge of the layout of things not only anticipated where the mini sub would escape to, but somehow beat them there with enough time to turn around, form up, and hide? And even if that was the case, how did Duke know? I'm a fan of cool, and so I take offense at the notion that "cool scenes" are built around moronic concepts.
