Movie Details
| Title: | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra | |
| Director: | Stephen Sommers | |
| Year: | 2009 | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 01.20.10 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Van Helsing
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 01.20.10 | Netflix | A few years ago, we saw a short at one of Tim League's FantasticFest screener nights that wasn't particularly good except for the fact that it was live-action G.I. Joe guys running around. They played it completely straight even though it was pretty evident that it was just a bunch of friends out in Griffith Park for a weekend, and something about the ridiculousness of the toy line seen in flesh and blood irony-free really worked for me. And that's how I feel about this movie. Instead of no-budget and amateurish, it's way over-polished and CG-fake. If it were not a G.I. Joe movie, I'd probably completely dismiss it, but instead I buy it. OK, the spuer-soldier suits still didn't do anything for me, but that's just because I never had them in toy form. Everything else somehow seemed excusable because the toys were total 80s excess magic so why not the movie too? So I'm not sure why I'm choosing to disclose this publicly - it's pretty embarrassing - but why not, right? I played with G.I. Joes at an unacceptably old age. Like, 9th grade. I think they were the last "toys" that I played with, not counting video games. I clearly remember setting up elaborate tableaux of joes mid-combat on the basement carpet, on the basement stairs, on the workbench in the unfinished basement auxiliary room. Fake blood was employed. Leftover Mad Scientist glow-in-the-dark goop made to look like props from my imagination's unofficial G.I. Joe vs. Aliens movie. Screwdriver operations were performed to create a Joe strongly resembling Cable from The New Mutants comic book. And to make matters worse, after setting these epic scenes of carnage up, I would commit them to video, often with character voice-over as I zoomed and fumbled from scene to scene. This was perhaps my geekiest period of development. Now in my defense... I was also getting into horror movies at the time so the fake blood and glow-in-the-dark goop also made for fan-remakes of Re-Animator or Predator... and I also did most of this stuff with my neighbor buddy Cameron... Not that this makes it any less geeky, but whatever. Point is, G.I. Joe was my jam. Anyway, This movie isn't that great. My little basement scenes were better, but this had explosions enough and although I had to see Marlon Wayans play Riptide, I also got to see Ray Park play Snake Eyes. I do kind of wish they would've stuck to Zartan's original costume or involved the crimson twins somehow (they were a fav of mine due to their zipline accessory) but whatever... dumb stupid Yo Joe! fun. |
