Are the Joes retaliating against Cobra or is Cobra retaliating against the Joes? I honestly have no idea. Having never been a fan of the toys, cartoon show, or the previous G.I. Joe movie, my knowledge of the Joes mostly came from spoofs on the internet. Good thing one doesn’t have to think or really follow a plot in a movie like this one.
The President of the United States has been replaced by a shape-shifting Cobra agent who orders the Joes to take control of some nuclear weapons when a civil war breaks out in Pakistan. But when the Joes are double crossed, and most of them are killed in an airstrike by Cobra forces, the remaining Joes must rally together and stop the imposter President from taking over the world……or something like that.
This latest toys-to-cartoon-to-movie adaptation is brought to us by Jon Chu, who previously directed two Step Up movies and the Justin Bieber concert movie. The Joes are played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis, D.J. Cotrona, Adrianne Palicki, and Ray Park. (Parks plays the mute ninja assassin, Snake Eyes, whose face we never see.) I’m not even going to bother mentioning who plays the Cobra commandos because they were even more forgettable than most of the Joes were. Really the only person who was memorable in the movie was Jonathan Pryce as both the captive President and the imposter President. Pryce was a blast to watch ham up his role as a rogue power. Just watch his “diplomatic negotiations” during a meeting of world leaders to discuss nuclear disarmament.
I saw this in 3D and apart from a very cool scene where Snake Eyes battles a evil ninja army while rappelling down a mountain side, neither the movie or the 3D provided any stand out moments. In the end, I don’t know what useful purpose this movie has in existing. It wasn’t entertaining. It wasn’t intellectually stimulating (not that I expected it to be.) And most importantly for a movie like this, it wasn’t even all that fun. This was just a very lame movie.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. G.I. JOOOOOOE.
