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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - Grading & Discussion

Grading

  • Total voters
    91
Well, it was definitely worth $4.00 to go see. I thought it captured a lot of the elements of the cartoon series.

The plot was relatively simple, but easy to follow. Although a number of changes were made, for the most part they made some sense.

As some have pointed out, the fighting scenes were much easier to follow because they didn't use the shaky camera effect.
 
Ebert's review is in.

He gave it * 1/2 stars, but on the GI Joe DVD cover you can almost guarantee this quote:

"...better than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
 
Know what? Fuck the critics.

This film is the best turn-your-brain-off action film I've seen this year. I came in expecting a good time and I got it. I had a big stupid grin on my face through most of the movie. The plot is cliched, the action is ridiculous, everything about this movie is just plain silly, but damn it all if I care. I had a damn good time. It's not at all like that horrid Tansformers 2, that made me feel like I was under assault. If you want explosions, action, ninjas, guns, car chases, and just plain fun, go see this. Oh, I also might add that Baroness and Scarlet are the best eye candy of the year as well (to hell with Megan Fox.)

As far as the action scenes go, I thought the chase in Paris was worth the price of admission alone (even if the ending of it was spoiled by the trailers.) Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow were also both completely awesome. Both of their fights scenes were great. Snake Eyes in particular walked away with the entire movie.
 
Above average.

It is way over the top action, but it is great fun. It felt kind of like Starship Troopers to me, only without the Nazi undertones.
 
Now that was truly dreadful. Only the on-screen presence of the lovely Rachel Nichols and, of course, the real-life presence of my 14-year old son, who wanted to see it for his birthday, kept me from bailing out early on. Bleccchhh.
 
Great movie, this is the type of movie ive been waiting for since Transfomers sucked hard this year.

I watched G.I. Joe as a kid but i honestly dont remember much about it so i walked into this movie cold not knowing the characters except Destro and Cobra and dont remember the story line from the cartoon.

But it was fun to watch and great to see the REAL DOCTOR
(Christopher Eccleston) :techman:how i miss you from Doctor Who.

Honestly if not for MR. Eccleston i wouldnt of went out and watched this movie, so he can be thanks for my $8 bucks and well worth it.

This movie is going to rock on Blu-ray.

If you want to see a good action movie, with Ninja's and hot chicks and lots of stuff get blown up, go check this out. As i said i didnt no the characters and i wasnt lost at all.
 
It started off badly and slowly grew on me. Channing Tatum is a horrible actor, but overall, it made a nice mix of the spirit of the comic and the cartoon. Parts of it are utterly laughable but it's full of neat effects and speculative technology. Much better than the trailer made it out to be. It's a fun ride for eight years olds and maybe some of us who wish we still were.

Average.
 
Thrall said:
- The movie was fun and easy to follow, but I have to ask... How and why exactly did a young, skinny soldier become an evil megalomaniac bent on world conquest? I must have missed something.
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They showed that. He was a techy geek who went over to the dark side because he was so enthralled with what Mindbender and Destro were doing.
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I thought there was more. If that's all there was to it, I'd say that's pretty weak.

Also, I did say that I liked how they turned McCullen into Destro and I still do, but now that my thoughts have settled in a bit more, I think it was a bit rushed and contrived.
 
^^^^^^
I don't know that I'd argue the rushed bit but here is how I saw it not being contrived.

The mask represented a type of slavery, it was an instrument of submission and to be seen as an example. We saw this at the start of the movie. So at the end when CC turns McCulen's face into that mask its a way of enslaving him. Making him an example to the rest of what will become Cobra that he,CC, is not to be taken lightly.

Was that moment rushed, perhaps but I say not contrived. It served its on purpose within the internal logic of the film. Now had CC strapped him down and given some windy speech about loyalty yadda, yadda and then injected him we'd be talking about what a cliche mustache twirling moment it was. It had to be done one way or the other.
 
No one else needed a steel face to be enslaved.

This only proved that, at the end of the day, Cobra Commander has a hila-arious sense of humour.

So much to hate, so few characters in the English alphabet.

I was waiting the whole movie for Scarlet to mention to Ripcord that she's into snakeeyes, and that he should back the hell off.

At least Rachel looks like she's eaten something since her days on Alias, I could never take some one that thin seriously as a thug.

Why was this flick called the Rise of Cobra?

It didn't rise.

It tripped over it's own feet straight out of the starting blocks into huge and embarrassing Hindenberigian clusterfuck.

This movie should have been called the Miss Start of Cobra, and the sequel should one day be called the Mulligan of Cobra.

The Baroness was always sexy because she was evil, not despite that she was evil.

What a perfectly god waste of evil.
 
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra pulled in about $22,300,000 on its opening Friday -- pretty solid, if not quite explosive. It'll probably make between $65-75 million over the weekend, depending on how front-loaded it is.
 
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

My Grade: C+

Rated PG-13 for PG-13: strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout.

======================================================

This was a movie I was convinced was going to be terrible. Posts and threads I've started since first seeing the trailers for this movie made it look like absolute shit on the likes of the "Street Fighter" series.

Well, I was wrong.

In the not to distant future there was some guys named Joe, not to different than you and me. They worked for a secret ultra-elite branch of international soldiers. They did a good job cleaning up the world, but their enemies didn't like them so they shot their supporters some deadly missiles that can dissolve entire cities. "I'll force them to play out cheesy action scenes, the most contrived we can put together. They'll be forced to fight us will I smile and grin from my secret underwater base." Now, you must keep in mind that the Joes can't control where their missions begin and end, as there's no apparent rigidity -or acknowledgment- of their existence. So much so that when they save a city they end up arrested and asked never to come back.

Joe Role-Call!

General Hawk: Played by Denis "I'm Awesome" Quaid. 'Nuff said.

Duke: Interesting enough character. Generic soldier.

Ripcord: More or less plays "Token" but interesting enough character.

Scarlet: Played by a red-haired Rachel Nichols. "Nuff said.

Snake Eyes: Probably the best character of the "Joes."

The Baroness: Leathery, evil chick.

Cobra Commander: Well pulled off.

Now you might be wondering how the Joes pull off their stunts. Well they have these suits in one scene that turn them into CGI Spider-men who can do whatever they want. But just repeat to yourself that it's just a show and that you just relax. For GI Joe.

(And yes, I did this strained joke from an opening title-card that sends us into the main bulk of the story as being "In the not too distant future...")

The aim of the movie is mostly action and group-dynamics on the levels of the first-two X-men movies and maybe a poor Bondian movie. The plot is thin where they pretty much have to get back a destructive weapon that can devour entire cities that the manufacturer of has stolen back from NATO in order to use it against major cities in order to generate more need for their weapons.

It's convoluted, yes. This movie has plot holes in it you can drive a tank through. Like that the NATO-like alliance so easily accepts and welcomes a weapon that can devour entire cities and can only be presumably stopped with the press of a button. Right. Considering how civilized nations right now feel about using nukes I doubt they accept so warmly a weapon like this. But whatever. It's inspired by a cartoon and action figures.

There's also an action scene earlier in the movie where the Cobra team breaks into the headquarters for the GI Joes built under an Egyptian desert. Instead of this secret compound being lined with some-kind-of near-indestructible metal it's simply lined by rock so the Cobras can just drill right into it. And when they do and start killing guards and firing off weapons no alarms go off and they manage to walk right into the commander's office. This is in a compound presumably staffed by the very best of the world's millitaries.

Right.

Thankfully the "Accelerator Suits" that are featured in the trailer only play a role in one action sequence but it still looks dumb, is too much of a gimmick and they (along with the "stunts" they allow our heroes to do) just look silly.

The movie is also intercut with some "flashbacks" between of events that occurred between Duke and The Baroness (apparently they were engaged years ago but failures on Duke's part caused them to drift apart) and some of the best flashbacks are Snake Eyes' and Storm Shadow's who're adoptive rival "brothers."

Duke's and The Baroness' flashbacks are tedious and boring, Snakes' and Storm's are pretty decent.

Overall the movie is decent Summer entertainment, the action scenes are pretty good, though the story is thin and the acting a performances forgettable. There's not much that's stunning about this movie, the CGI/effects look like they were done 10 years ago in a high-school computer-art class, but there's nothing terrible about it either.

It's decent escapist entertainment and it doesn't rape your skull with numbing action for an hour like some other Summer-action movies did.

I wouldn't rush out to see this, but I probably won't skip it either if you're even a mild fan of GI Joe or this kind of entertainment. Maybe worth a matinee viewing or at least a DVD rental.
 
It was ok for what it was. Much better than both Transformers movies. The super suit scene was way better than it looked in the trailers.

That being said, Destro is a huge pussy, Snake Eyes has a pointless mouth, everyone is related, Baroness isn't evil and Cobra Commander has the LAMEST mask in history.
 
I just got back from the movie theater. I must admit, it was better than I expected.

I don't think it should be compared to any of the X-Men films. If any thing, the film sort of parallels James Bond and Star Wars in a lot of ways--the good-versus-evil theme, the array of weapons and technology used in the battles.

The movie is fast-paced and action-packed with teeth-gritting, butt-tensing action sequences. Indeed it's one of the better summer action blockbusters.

Rating: B
 
I gave it an "Excellent", but I'm coming from a different POV than most. As a movie alone, I'd say "Above Average" as an action movie with cool effects and funny moments. Sienna and Rachel were hot, and yay for a cool chick fight. Sienna really hammed it up a lot, as did Eccleson and Gordon-Levitt did a great job considering all he had to emote with was one eye! I agree with the above that Snake Eyes owned virtually every scene he appeared in. Sadly, Channing Tatum had all the charisma of a block of wood. Thank goodness Marlon was able to resist going over the top with his humor.

What struck me as fantastic is how well this movie is made to sell action figures. It's totally the movie made for the kids that take action figures, make forts out of mounds of dirt in their backyards and flip over vehicles to show they blew up. It was a high budget version of action figure commercials from the 80's with a cartoon story to match. In that respect it was spectacular. When they first introduced the suits everyone complained so much about my gf and I were laughing so hard because the whole "product placement" was so blatant. We were just messing with that figure in TRU a half hour before we saw the flick so it really added to the effect.

The set up for the sequel was really nicely done. The next movie practically writes itself. I hope it does well.
 
The studio knew the critics were going to hate it right off the bat. Which why they showed the first screenings to about 1000 actual GI's and their families. Which I guess was their way also of saving face after they took out The Real American Hero bit.

Apparently alot of the stuff in regards to The Baroness is from the comic book. In that she is completely brainwashed, CC's sister, and Duke's former love. So that really doesn't bother me. My only issue with the lovey dovey stuff was that Scarlet should have either been after Duke or with Snake Eyes. I realize why they didn't go that way. Snake Eyes would be hard to sell as a love interest and Ripcord needed something to do other then crack jokes.

The Baroness was always sexy because she was evil, not despite that she was evil.
Click to expand...

Only recently. The show and comic writers finally figured out that nerdy dominatrixes are hot. In the old show she was shrill, obnoxious, and kind of a dork.
 
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