Weekend Bites: "G.I.JOE" No Joe!

I’ve got good news and bad news when it comes to G.I.JOE.

The good news is I saved a bundle on my car insurance by switching to GEICO.

The bad news… well there’s a lot, so let me break it down.


Overall rating: 2 1/2 bites (out of 5)

I tried to give G.I.JOE an honest shot, I really did. I tried to stay as objective as possible, and hoped that the nostalgia of my childhood would play a more significant role during the entire JOE movie experience. But in all honesty, the movie failed to meet my expectations in a lot of ways, and it’s not like I had high expectations for this movie. Truth be told, I had really low expectations.

Going into the movie, after reading some reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought JOE would at least be entertaining, keeping me on the edge of my seat for the entire 2 hour experience. Maybe it was the gratuitous use of CGI throughout the entire movie, or maybe it was the fact that I watched the movie at 11:00pm, ORRRR maybe it was because I watched it after the UFC bouts on Saturday, but I found myself being really bored amidst all the action sequences; they just didn’t seem to amount to anything mind-blowing.

But before I go into more detail about all the parts that missed the mark, let me highlight some of the… uh… highlights:

1. Sienna Miller looked hot. She may have been the only bright star among a cast of lackluster, gaseous balls.

2. Sienna Miller looked hot.

3. Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow were badass. Their fight sequences were pretty phenomenal. They were everything you wanted to see as a kid, but put into live-action and on the big screen. Plus, I have to give a shout out to my boy Byung-hun Lee. Representin’ the motherland with style.



And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Let me just make this clear – I didn’t hate G.I.JOE. I didn’t love it either. And it's not a terrible film, but it's not great either. And it does have some entertainment value. It just did absolutely nothing for me. I spent all weekend trying to figure out why it did nothing for me and I think one of my cohorts said it best: the movie really had nothing at stake. There was no epic battle between good and evil, and nothing genuinely mind-blowing. It was rather predictable and the end felt rushed in order to fit in the “big secret.” But there are a lot of things to nitpick about, so I’ll just run through the easiest to the hardest.

First and foremost, when did they change the law to allow British people to become President of the United States?? It was kind of disappointing to see Jonathan Price give such a mediocre performance, when I know that he’s a very talented actor. He didn’t hide his accent at all; I guess I can’t really say that -- He didn’t hide his accent well. I really couldn’t buy into the fact that he was the President. It literally was a British man in the Oval office. Bad form.

Secondly, there was also a lot of campiness in the movie. As the movie progressed, the camp also seemed to progress. It was the same 80’s camp put into a big budget film, set in the modern day. And I don’t know if I really had a problem with that because I get what the filmmakers may have been trying to do. They wanted to capture the same fun and enjoyment of the 80’s ‘toon and bring that to the big screen. I get that. But it would have been nice to see something a little grittier, a little rawer. After all, the kids who watched G.I.JOE in the 80’s and 90’s are all grown up now. I’m sure we can handle a little more badass-ery.

One of my biggest qualms with this movie may be the gratuitous usage of CGI. Frankly, there was waaaay too much CGI. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against CGI as long as it’s done well and implemented correctly, but that’s where JOE dropped the ball. The action sequences were so chalk full of CGI that I left the theater feeling unimpressed, possibly because it was almost like watching a full-length computer-animated feature film. No, I take that back… it was like watching a full-length computer-animated feature film, and all the actors were just doing voiceover work. In that respect, I guess G.I.JOE never left its animated roots. But consequently, I found myself being genuinely distracted by how much animation, rather than real-life acting was put into this movie (more on the acting later). One scene that was particularly distracting was the scene that took place in the Arctic Circle. My initial critique was that that set was just poorly designed, but I guess that’s what happens when you invest more money into the CGI department than into set design. But I digress. The reason I found it so distracting, aside from the fact that Duke is so badass that he doesn’t need a parka or even a coat to survive in that climate, was the computer generated breath. As if that’s going to mask the poorly designed set, and make the “Arctic Circle” much more believable. The only thing running through my mind was how ridiculous CGI breathing looked. Then again, I guess you can consider that mind-blowing. Outsourcing computer graphics to breathing is pretty earth-shattering.

Lastly, the acting – I guess you really can’t expect Oscar-caliber performances for a movie like G.I.JOE, but at least get a better DUKE! When I first heard that Channing Tatum was going to play Duke, my initial response was – Why?! And now, after seeing his performance, I stand by my initial assessment. From a purist fanboy point-of-view, Duke is supposed to be a total badass, and Channing Tatum really does not evoke that kind of persona. But, I have to be honest, I was a little excited to see if Channing could pull it off, if he had what it takes to be one bad mother-*shut yo’ mouth*! But he didn’t step up (no pun intended) to the challenge. He demonstrated the acting chops of a cave wall, lacking both the charisma and emotional capacity that the script, character, and film required of him. Now if we can only get Channing Tatum, Malin Akerman, and Jessica Alba to make one EPIC film adaptation of another cartoon from the 80’s to effectively ruin my childhood that would be awesome. I hear Thundercats is in the works… hmm…

-Ace