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I haven't checked my mail in 2 years:
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GI Joe
This poster is the essence of what GI Joe is as a movie. The very essence. Boobs and fire. Fire generated by lasers but fire nonetheless. And rockets. And sinking ice. And ninja's. And undersea submarine battles. Making a movie that's basically supposed to consist of just action and explosions can be damn tricky. The master of fucking it up beyond all reasonable comprehension will always be Michael bay since he has fucking movies up elevated into an art. I was terrified if this franchise would also be 'Bayified' because then, I realized it would be but a mere matter of time before they touched the single franchise I truly care about, MASK. Were they to ever fuck up MASK in the way they fucked up the Transformers I would probably die of heart failure due to it having a fork jammed into it. But anyway, GI JOE is here. I can't say I ever truly cared for the GI JOE franchise and luckily, the internet didn't seem so rabidly fanatical over what it should be as they were with Transformers and Wolverine. That meant that director Stephen Sommers (who made the slick action movie The Mummy) had some room to turn it into what he wanted. And what Sommers wants is good because Stephen Sommers understands what an action movie aimed at people over the age of 12 should be unlike his colleague Bay who by now ought to be the most despised man in the world.
So, what makes a good action movie with a premise as extraordinarily idiotic as GI Joe? I mean, we are talking 1960's James Bond level of story telling with bad guys in an evil undersea lair with ray guns, rocket packs, drill pods and good guys with ninja's, rocket humvee's, accelerator suits and hot redhead agents. In fact, Sommers said that he based a lot of his movie on James Bond things which to me, is the most awesome thing since James Bond himself. Its like he can see in my head to see what I find awesome. Its creepy. The action comes in spades. Giant cole shoveling spades. The chases and battles are clever and original and jaw droppingly gorgeous to watch. If your visual cortex is not running overtime when you see an apache gunship shot from the sky by a pulse cannon then my friend, we have nothing in common. Its almost to awesome to watch. Its like something that should be put in a museum of cinematographic beauty. And the whole movie is like that.
But............almost 15 minutes into the movie I spotted the main difference between this and Transformers. And it is a big one. Where Transformers had cool action, bombastic CGI and explosions it also had incredibly stupid and juvenile jokes, blatant racist autobots idiots and plenty of massively stupid robots who only seemed to exist to be shot by the US army. It was moronic from start to end and somewhat insulting to the audience. Also, Shia Lebouf was in it. GI Joe is different. The main characters have not once struck me as being stupid. The jokes are few and far between and they are usually genuinely funny. But this movie's single biggest achievement is that is has Marlon Wayans in it, he has a leading role and he DID NOT ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF ME. Praise be to Stephen Sommers for achieving the impossible! So what we have here then, is the blockbuster of the year. A roaring action movie with awesome characters, ninja's and humor that is the exact opposite of Transformers. I loved it. It is unassuming, simply wants to entertain, has plenty of awesomeness and simply screams for a sequel. It is good to see that there are people who know how to make a cool action flick. It warms my heart. In fact, if they ever decide to make a MASK movie then please Hollywood, let it be done by Stephen Sommers. He's my hero for the week. The final verdict: -Fighting children -Lots of hotness -Good representation of human species (sometimes overdone, can we really survive an explosion in one piece?) -Story, probably. -Every actor ruled, including Marlon Wayans and it almost pains me to say that. -Fighting, oh gods the fighting. -Plenty of compensating awesomeness for the lack of giant robots. Accelerator suits for one.
Praise be to Stephen Sommers! ggggggggggg
gggggg Back to the world of sucks and rules
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