I grew up a GI Joe fan... comics...figures... the animated show. Between this franchise and Star Wars, I daily kick myself for not having invested in Hasbro when I was 9.
While not knowing all the Joes, I was pretty familiar with the storyline(s).
NUTSHELL:
- high body count (both combatants and civilians) most of it wince inducing and on-screen
- lots o' language
- female heroes and villians are dressed to entice
- lot's of CGI & high tech gadgetry
- it's fitting that the end credits' song is "boom Boom Pow" with all the explosions
- if you love Paris, be prepared to say goodbye
This is not a movie to take your kids to. I think the PG-13 rating was generous, and while it's not 'R' material, this 'summer blockbuster' - like Transformers and Terminator - should NOT be targeted to kids. But Hasbro is marketing all the way down to the pre-school level with toys.
The old animated series was laughable in that everyone was constantly shooting at each other but it seemed no one ever got hit. At least no one of great importance... and if they did they got medical attention and you could be sure of their return. The comic books were similar but since their story arcs covered months and years the healing time was extended. And yes, in the comic stories - sometimes people died.
This movie's body count is high, with both combatants and non-combatants dying frequently. This often happens off screen (cars blown up and down a street, offices and storefronts and busses getting destroyed with the implication that their visible occupants are affected) - and yet much is on screen... and some of it pretty grisly. It's a military flick though right? Perhaps. But the body count here is not like that of 'Private Ryan' - serving to detail the horrors of war. Joe's body count is done for entertainment value. Many of the COBRA soldiers get impaled through the eye, there is at least one fairly noticeable decapitation and one character ends up looking like Freddy Krueger after a mishap with fire.
I should mention that the last film I saw (rented) was "Hotel Rwanda". It is (or should be) nearly impossible to go from that gut-wrenching disgust of the casualties of war to the killing glee-fest of this movie. Also it is just tough to go from a film of that brilliance, depth and artistic nature to G. I. Joe.
Also in the disturbing violence category, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes are shown fighting as kids. Not in a Sandlot kind of way, but in a no holds barred, martial arts, fight-to-kill sort of way. I get the rivalry, but given the original storylines the hatred from SS to SE reached it's zenith when the two were much older than 9 or 10 years old. How many copycat fights are there going to be because the kiddos saw this type of fighting on G I Joe?
Finally in the violence category, I am not a fan of women trying to kill each other. I have never understood the sick draw of a 'cat fight'. Moreso when blades and chains and pipes are involved.
Speaking of the women - Scarlett and the Baroness are both mostly dressed in outfits to induce male arousal - and not in clothes that would be worn in those type of combat settings. And really - if you need body armor is it going to be that formed to your body or draw attention like that? C'mon! Yes, the comics always had busty females, so I knew this might enter the mix. The one other female 'main' character 'Covergirl' is dressed in fatigues, but she gets axed pretty early on in a nasty way.
So that leads to the Joes armor & costumes. The comics and TV show were vibrantly colorful, because each Joe was unique and their clothes (often times completely impractical) demonstrated this. Here - everybody gets black, or white when we reach "Hoth" (more on that later). The Accelerator suits were cool.
My main beef with costuming? Who decided to give Snake Eyes lips??? Seriously?? He doesn't need them.
Which leads to storylines.
Snake Eyes - did not take a vow of silence when his master died! He was horribly wounded while saving Scarlett's life! this caused him to be horribly disfigured (the need for he mask) and irreparably damaged his vocal chords.
(POSSIBLE SPOILER: In the comics, Snake Eyes' Master was killed by Zartan - NOT Storm Shadow)
Scarlett & Snake Eyes (in the comics) were a serious item / or Scarlett and Duke. The movie hints (barely) at a relationship between Scarlett and Snake Eyes, but quickly dumps it to pair her up with... wait for it... Ripcord. Uh... Ripcord? Read his Wikipedia page. He's about as minor a character as you can get in the comics. Sheesh.
Duke & Baroness - totally not in the comics, but it worked for me except that if this truly is going to be a trilogy of films, let her 'turn' at the end, not 5/6 of the way through this film! And don't reveal her brother's fate until that last film!
Cobra Commander - wha??? backstory - nope. waaaaay too stupid. I won't spoil it here. And the mask at the end. um.. people at Universal and Hasbro - this was so silly as to make it laughable. Just give him the hood!!!!
Storm Shadow - Without ruining things, I'm not sure how they could bring him back in a semi-believable way. I loved that in the comics he eventually came around and became a Joe.
Nanomites - whatever. biggest disappointment of the film and utterly preposterous.
They threw in Dr. Mindbender, but let's pray that the shark that killed G.I.Joe (Cobra-la & Serpentor) never enters the film adaptions.
and..erm.. G.I. Joe was an American special ops team. The film says they are made up of the best and brightest from 10 allied nations. Uh... anybody explain to me why a multi-nation special ops team has a decidedly American name? General Infantry Joe (slang for American soldier).
What's with the 'Hoth" comment? Once the Joes track the villians to their secret hideout, it really reminds you of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back... and the heroes daring escape? It is at times almost frame for frame the escape route of Lando Calrissian and Nien Nunb from Return of the Jedi. *Sigh* *yawn* - I saw that before... in 1983!
SUMMARY: Some good thoughts, but if this is a trilogy... I'll watch the next ones on DVD. The altered storylines bugged me, but the body count moreso. And again, I come back to this: movies with this level of graphic violence should never be marketed to kids. The comics and animated TV show were not this rough.
The movie swings back and forth from "gritty realism" to "cartoonish" subplots and dialog. So it's got enough eye-rolling moments. "Knowing is half the battle" is actually a line... as well as "Yo Joe!"
oh - and can someone explain to me how ice can sink and destroy underwater military complexes?
this movie could have been so much better.
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