Over at Poe Ghostal’s Points of Articulation, there was a review of GIJoe: Rise of Cobra, a movie that (given my love of GIJoe: A Real American Hero) seems like a huge oversight on my part. In putting together a response that mostly agreed with the summary that the film was a good bad movie, I found myself pontificating at great lengths. So to fill the noticeable gap in my recent writings, I give you a slightly modified version of the opinions expressed at Poe and add it here for your consideration.
I was really surprised how much I enjoyed GIJoe. In fact it was a far better movie in my opinion than Transformers: Rise of the Forgotten Guy Who Use to be a Prime but is now Called the Fallen. I think that’s mainly because of anticipation (positive for Transformers, negative for GIJoe). And that I could tell the characters apart.
I thought (particularly after rumour that director had been hauled out to the back alley and shot) GIJoe would be unbearable, and so I went more out of morbid curiousity than devoted loyalty. Having seen two clips at Botcon for Transformers: Electric Boogalo, and enjoyed the first one, I had big expectations that were sadly squished like a bug. With GIJoe, the reverse was true. I had negative expectations that the movie could not help but exceed.
Yes, a lot of the plot points were bad comedy. So the unnecessary “Hazing of Duke and Ripcord”, the convenience of skills coming into use at just the right time (Ripcord’s piloting skills, Scarlett’s language skills), the weird triangle between the Baroness, Duke and Cobra Commander, I mostly overlooked and tried not to dwell on.
Where I really got upset about the story? Two parts. One, the idea that Cobra has enough money to build an undersea base but needs NATO funding for the nanotech bombs. It would be understandable if the whole point was simply to make NATO aware of the bomb’s existence, but that really wasn’t it, so I was put off by that. But the worst was the “let’s take away the Baroness’ free will at the end of the movie and make her a puppet of Rex.” Really. That sucked. As did the “And you shall call me Commander” line. Up there with the infamous “NOOOO!” of Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith.
To the good? Well, the characterization might not have been great but at least I could tell who was who. And Joes acted in character. For instance, they didn’t just beat up the arresting officers in France - they managed to get themselves out of the jam with the police in time to save the world, instead of shooting their way out and running (or to use the TF analogy, murdering the villains because they failed to consider other options).
Meanwhile, I got Christopher Eccleston (who I love), Snake Eyes mostly in an original costume and well portrayed, a decent Duke in Dennis Quaid and the surprise of Adabisi as Roadblock… er… Heavy Duty. And I loved the Heavy Duty shout out of “Yo Joe” after they destroyed the underwater base, and various other fan shout outs (the U.S.S. Flagg for instance - there was another one there that was BRILLIANT but it has slipped my mind for now.)
And EVIL WON, which I totally didn’t expect.
So I watched it once in the theatre and left not thinking I was going to have to punch the manager in the face. Not sure if that is two thumbs up but at least I don’t feel like I was ripped offf. I’ll probably grab a fancy box edition during the upcoming DVD release campaign. Because, it really could have been much much worse.
And knowing that is half the battle.
Transformer of the Day for September 14, 2009
