I think that firstly we have to look at the script. Yeah, I know, what script right? The focus is placed so firmly on the action that any kind of logical progression of script is pretty much on back burner the entire film. It does have a story of sorts and it goes like this: one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers teams with with a brilliant and diabolical scientist to create a nanotechnology that can...well do anything, naturally. Eat metal, mind control, erase all sense of humanity, create living metal tissue, eat flesh, and, of course, allow a rather senseless plot to have a 'logistical' reason to be completely random and illogical. So a secret group of the world's best military men and women (deemed GI Joe) have been put to the test to stop these evil doers by destroying as much as possible, using ridiculous amounts of top secret technology, and never even think twice that perhaps they should ask questions before shooting...shooting some more...shooting even more...and blowing shit up. There is some twists and turns as we find out that our main man, Duke, so brilliantly played as a frat boy with muscles by Tatum, finds out his ex-fiancee now deemed The Baroness (I'm pretty sure in the original that Duke and Scarlett had a thing not Baroness) is a bad guy and willing and able to kick the shit out of him. Really, since that story line was pretty thin and week it was just a plot progression moment that didn't work but since it allowed for him and her to blow shit up, we can bypass. We also get some rather pointless back story with some of the other characters that isn't worth explaining since it mattered nilch in the end cause most of you will tune out of the rather poor dialogue (and some of the worst one liners in history...not even bad good) because, all together now, there's shit blowing up! As you can tell I was rather impressed with the story.
Now that we've deemed the script as a rather waste of time and thought, lets move onto what's most important. Shit blowing up. Now, I'll give this a solid star for this. Won't lie, I like watching general mayhem even if its beyond any logic. Like why do the bad guy blue energy guns (not lasers more like sound wave cannons...whatever) blow some shit up in big fiery balls but others just knock things in the air? Are they like phasers with different settings? Phaser set to 'fire'. Phaser set to 'knock shit into air'. That goes with most of the action in the movie. It's so inconsistent in what everyone is able to do that if you tried to think about any of it, you had an brain hemorrhage. Accelerator suits? Why the hell wouldn't you use those all the time? They seem pretty much indestructible and if you always had one guy in your squad with them that would be awesome. But again, why make logic when we have to move towards a new action scene. And location. Fuck consistency, lets have these guys travel from desert, to North Pole, to Paris, to DC, to random forest, two complexes, to - oh fuck it. It doesn't matter where, there's always shit to blow up anywhere. Even icecaps as it turns out. It's okay though, it will keep your attention. And get us a dollar for the rental - sucker.
Wow, my review is getting long. Hang with me though, there's more to be addressed. Let's move onto my final point. The cast. When I first saw the cast I was like...'alright, I can go with this'. Turns out I was wrong. I couldn't go with it. The acting was AWFUL and the casting was SHIT. I'm not sure who thought Tatum was a 'leader figure' but his take on a rather dumb Duke with girlfriend issues made me want to rip out of own spleen and throw it at the screen. Ripcord is played off as a side kick character too often than not, of which the humor in the movie was far too bottom of the barrel to even chuckle at, who gets almost no character work expect for the fact he has the hots for Scarlett with a seemly disinterested Marlon Wayans in the role. Scarlett is a bullshit side character as are many of the other Joes played by actors who don't know if they should playing their role or lines seriously or with cheese. The only true casting good call was Ray Park as Snake Eyes. And then they gave Snake Eyes an awful character design (he has lips! Fuck that noise!) and rush his character back story. Dammit, guys, that one could have been easy. I gave you star for one of the worst Ninja designs ever! They're lucky I love ninja.
So I gotta go with "GI Joe" kept my attention with its illogical jumps that I tried to figure out and with random things blowing up, but God forbid, if you try to think about this movie, you may die from stupidity. One star for blowing up, one star for ninja (even poorly executed ones). They should have let Stallone do "GI Joe". I'm sure "The Expendables" next year will do a far better job at making a cheesy action movie for me to love.
Now, I'm going to try to haggle with the Red Box machine to see if I can get my money back for it renting out crap.
Written By Matt Reifschneider
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