Real American Heroes – G.I. Joe
- 0 Comments
I didn’t have very high expectations for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Initially, I was excited when I heard another one of my favorite cartoons when I was growing up was going to be made into a movie. Truthfully, my inner child was thrilled, especially when you hear “knowing is half the battle” and “yo Joe!”, but the adult side of me wasn’t all that satisfied with a live-action G.I. Joe.
For most of the movie I felt like I was an observer in a big game of Halo. Every action scene had somebody getting shot in the head, hit in the eye with a dart, or getting their head blown off. It was pretty much a non-stop action ride that keeps your eyes latched onto the screen, because there is so much happening that if you blink you might miss something. That’s a good thing for most people, but I felt like too much was happening and wanted to see what else was going on around the explosions. Maybe that’s why they used so many slow-motion shots.
Even with slow-motion shots you would expect the computer animation to look smooth and realistic. Most of the time, it wasn’t the case. The big chase scene seemed like the timing was off with objects being thrown everywhere unnecessarily, and under the G.I. Joe headquarters in the middle of the desert was glaringly obvious that it was done on a blue screen. It was funny though that Brendan Fraser made a cameo in a movie that had the actor who played The Mummy.
The accelerator suits were a cool concept. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like it was something that was in the physical realm. Who wouldn’t want to have a gatling gun on their wrist like Barrett from Final Fantasy VII? Training the new recruits who got to use those suits could have been left out of the final cut. It was a good waste of about fifteen to twenty minutes.
There were also too many flashbacks to set up the story. Those flashbacks could have been used to help the plot of the next movie. Instead, they flashed back at least four times with six or seven different characters involved only to kill off one of them that could have made a series better with an ongoing feud.
Just like in Transformers 2, The Rise of Cobra uses a lot of product placement. Luckily for these “sponsors” this movie wasn’t as terrible as the former. General Hawk came riding in, looking all tough like he was from the Hell’s Angels on one of those Spyders that look like inverted tricycles. You can also see the huge logos of Cisco Networks and Norton Internet Security placed strategically on the screen.
If you want non-stop action with a throwback to your childhood days (especially if you grew up in the 80s), you should take a night to see G.I. Joe. Just don’t expect to learn a valuable lesson after the movie.
What do you think, American Heroes or American Zeroes?
Related posts: