GI Joe Is AWFUL

Written by Chris YogerstcloseAuthor: chrisyogerst Name: Chris Yogerst
Email: chris@parcbench.com
Site: http://twitter.com/chrisyogerst
About: Chris graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BA in film studies and English. He is pursuing a master's degree in 'critical studies in film and television' and is the editor of the Parcbench movies section. He is also a contributor to Breitbart's Big Hollywood and Frontpagemag's Newsreal.See Authors Posts (74) on August 10, 2009

No longer American, but internationally crappy.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra is watered down version of the Joe that we once knew.

In what should have been a straight to DVD release, we see the US Military fail at transporting nuclear warheads, but managed to keep them out of enemy (Cobra) hands.  All Americans involved are killed except for Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans).  They survive because the elite Joe’s come to their defense.

Duke and Ripcord are invited to join the squad by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), who says that “Technically, we don’t exist. We answer to no one. And when all else fails, we don’t.”  Soon after we see them fail at keeping their perimeter safe while Cobra minions break through their walls and steal the warheads.

The rest of the film is a plot to stop Cobra from detonating them. We find out that McCullen (Christopher Eccleston), who sold the warheads to the USA, is also working with Cobra.  He is the one who arranged to have them stolen.

Even with a storyline that is beyond weak, one might hope for some good action while you are there.  Unfortunately that isn’t good either.  It was like watching a two hour video game trailer.  The CGI was horrid at best and through most of the film the characters were computer generated.  The film appears to have been slapped together with the assumption that since GI Joe has a built in audience, they will automatically like it.

On to the dialogue; the film would have been better without it.  The interactions were extremely corny, useless or just plain stupid.  It was hard to tell if they were serious or if this was supposed to be a comedic film.  If an action film doesn’t have good action, it must at least have some dialogue worthy of our attention.  We are left in the dark here.

This film was marketed as if it could be a pro-American “hoorah” kind of action film.  Watching this film, I kept forgetting it was GI Joe.  Then, I remembered an angry feeling caming over me.  How could they ruin GI Joe?  John Nolte said it best, “If it wasn’t for resentment I wouldn’t have felt anything.”

The end of the film leaves a door open for a sequel; in case Hollywood wants to offend America again (we can bet on that!).  If Paramount green lights a sequel, let’s hope Michael Bay directs it.  He may be a lot of things, but one thing he would never do is strip the patriotism from GI Joe.

As a youngster in the early 1980’s, I remember loving the GI Joe cartoon and action figures immensely.  “GO JOE” rings through my head.  “A Real American Hero” is what they have always been.  That is, until Hollywood got their filthy paws on it.

There is nothing wrong with a group of people from different backgrounds working together, which is what our armed forces are anyway.  But why can’t GI Joe still be an all American dream team?

Everything American has been stripped from GI Joe and what we have is a melting pot of politically correct Hollywood garbage.  The old cartoon always taught us one thing, “knowing is half the battle.”  This film is terrible, “now you know.”

Film Grade: F