Movie Review: "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra"

This post contains affiliate links and our team will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on the links.

It’s very true, it is doubtful that Baroness wearing a bra during any of the filming, which was very entertaining to watch.  It was the only entertaining part of the movie that kept the entire audience hooked.  Thank you very much Sienna Miller for those wonderful cobras because lord knows your acting performance wasn’t giving any leverage for the film.   Honestly, the movie was not that bad.  It was a mediocre film for what it was.  Well… except for all the CGI that they used.  I was truly surprised with all the CGI used because they really made Channing Tatum look real!  Hell, I kind of hope that Sienna Miller was also CGI because if that was a real acting performance then I hope they list this movie under the comedy genre.  Okay, enough with the jokes!  Here’s the breakdown…

James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) is a weapon specialist that runs a weapon company called MARS.  He designs a special nanotechnology type missile that can literally eat through metal destroying cities.  His company sells the weapon to NATO and the US Army has a task of delivering the weapons.  In charge of special care and delivery of the weapons is Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans).  During their mission, Duke and Ripcord are ambushed by the Baroness (Sienna Miller) who later is known as Duke’s ex-fiancée Ana Lewis to retrieve the weapons back to McCullen because he wants to sell them to NATO’s enemy as well.  Duke and Ripcord are soon rescued by a group of special ops known as the G.I. Joe’s (Scarlett played by Rachel Nichols, Snake Eyes played by Ray Parks, and Heavy Duty played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).

The warheads are taken to The Pit, which is G.I. Joes’ command center where they meet General Hawk (Dennis Quaid).  Duke and Ripcord soon learn about this unknown government organization and have the desire to join the team especially after General Hawk learns about the relationship that Duke has with the Baroness.  We begin to learn that McCullen has a special Scientist named The Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) that is designing the same nanotechnology in soldiers to start a new world order.  Duke is subsequently kidnapped when The Cobra’s retrieve the warheads again and the team of G.I. Joe’s must now rescue Duke and prevent McCullen and The Doctor from launching these disastrous weapons onto the world.

The movie can definitely be categorized under the term convoluted.  There is a lot of complexity to the plot because there are too many subplots happening.  The movie is very much like the Watchmen in terms of creating subplots for character depth.  The film goes through a series of flashbacks to reveal who the characters are and where they came from.  So, that being said, this is where a film must be careful because it could fall into the complexity of the story and most films that try often do fall in.  As for this film it did a good job not falling into that trap because the story was pretty clear and concise.  It had many cheesy moments, but what do you expect, Oscar Buzz!  Please, give me a break!  The film is meant to be a fun entertaining ball-busting blockbuster action packed, mountain of CGI mastering chunky monkey FUN!  It definitely delivered that! (And the team tried to deliver weapons as well!). 

Sure, the acting performances are not Oscar worthy but they tried to pull it off.  And folks, Marlon was not that bad.  He had his funny moments and he did a decent job with the serious scenes.  Channing seemed to be at a one-dimensional level.  It was surprising because he didn’t deliver any range or emotion.  He only delivered weapons and was bad at that too!  Oh Snap, Crackle and POP!   Sienna Miller, my God, she was hard to watch.  It felt like torture watching her do whatever she was trying to do.   It was surprising because her mother ran the Lee Strasberg School of Acting in London.  She also attended the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York where Al Pacino, Robert Deniro and Dustin Hoffman acquired some of their skills.  Apparently, she probably flunked out.  Maybe it was her character that was annoying.  That should be the benefit of the doubt.  The best performer was by far Snake Eyes and he barely did any acting.  He had more emotion and conveyed so much range and he didn’t even open his mouth to say one word.  He was indestructible.  The Joe’s should have just sent him on all the missions because he was simply amazing!  He never lost a battle nor blew a mission.  The G.I. Joe’s got they’re butt kicked and he just destroyed everyone.  They should have set-up lawn chairs to relax and watched a real soldier do some major damage.  The character Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) should be tortured to a bloody vile hell!  Actually, the actor deserves most of the torture because he tortured the audience so much that it almost brought the demons out of us!  If that a**hole whistled, “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” one more time, I was going to punch my neighbor’s eardrum!  He was very obnoxious throughout the movie. 

With all that said and done the entire movie was a blast.  It had rough moments and fun moments.  It had sorrow and ‘humorow’ (humor).  It had peas and pods (the cool suits).  It had black and white.  It had Marlon and Pain (I mean Wayne).  It had the villain from Gone in 60 Seconds and the kid from “3rd Rock from the Sun”.  It had CGI and more CGI.  It had Sienna Miller and her coBRAs (boobies).  It had Brendan Fraser and an angry Asian guy.  But what it didn’t have was the G.I. Joe Public Service Announcement. “Don’t judge people!  That is good to know Sergeant Slaughter… and knowing is half the battle… (G.I. Joe theme song)  G.I. JOE!!”
You kind of wish they added that service announcement at the end of the movie.  Trust me; the movie had an abundance of cheesy moments that it would have never made a big difference.


DisneyStore.com