| mitchables |
08-08-2009 01:45 PM |
G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA
***1/2<O:p
Director: Stephen Sommers<O:p
Starring: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Rachel Nichols, Dennis Quaid<O:p
Review by Mitchables
It can be difficult for movies based on toys to work on an adult level, since most toys don’t necessarily have rich and intricate back stories that are strong enough to base entire films on. Kids don’t care about that stuff. Kids care about melting their army men in the microwave, bless their easily distracted souls. So it’s fortunate for the parents of those children - and the children of parents who are now too old to be taking their kids to the movies – that G.I. Joe, the seminal action figure and latest Hollywood re-imagining, actually has a deep and lengthy history that has been well tapped for director Stephen Sommers’ live-action adaptation of the Real American Heroes, albeit with some creative liberties of its own.<O:p
The premise is simple enough: Super-secret best-of-the-best military outfit headed by ultra-disciplinarian General Hawk (Quaid) recruits Army BFFs Duke (Tatum) and Ripcord (Wayans) into the fold to retrieve stolen futuristic nanotechnology from the shady Cobra Organisation. Hilarity, sexual tension, high adventure, and giant explosions ensue. And ninja fights. Awesome ninja fights. <O:p
Taking its cue from other recent film adaptations, The Rise of Cobra balances respect for its source material with accessibility for a wider/brand new audience. It’s an origin story, so the viewers are pulled along for the ride with Duke and Ripcord and essentially experience the film’s events as they do. There is obviously some divergence from previous incarnations, which is largely unavoidable when adapting anything, much less a story that has already been developed through toy-lines, multiple TV series and animated films, some video games, and a bunch of comics.
The casting is spot-on: Channing Tatum screams All-American Hero, while Sienna Miller’s Baroness and Rachel Nichols’ Scarlett are both more than capable of showing that although they are beautiful and classy women, they would absolutely ruin your shit if you so much as glanced at them wrong. Marlon Wayans is the big surprise here as he shows extended range beyond being the wacky African-American offsider to which he could have so easily been relegated. Ray Park and Lee Byung-hun bring the hurt as rival bad-ass ninjas Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, providing some of the most satisfying on-screen swordplay since Star Wars Kid hit the internets. Really, the whole film is undeniably well-cast, which lends it a great deal of credibility.<O:p
A particularly refreshing aspect of G.I. Joe is its global approach to its story. While the film could have culminated with New York or Washington being the inevitable target of deranged villains, Sommers and Co. whisk us away to Gay Ol’ Paris via deserts and the Arctic. This dispels the notion that the movie is a thinly veiled glorification of the American military and instead conveys a sense that this is a grand, visually appealing and ultimately fun story, provided you’re into that sort of thing. A final note, though: There can be such a thing as too much bullet-time. But now you know – and knowing is half the battle.<O:p
Lifted directly from the mag I write for.
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