G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Review

Film fans there are no words to describe the movie i'm about to review for you all today simply because it's a freaking G.I.Joe movie what does one say to that. This is a film that I actually wasn't planning on reviewing at all but when I was watching another movie I suddenly came up with the idea of reviewing this film and so here we are and here is my review of the first live action G.I. Joe film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

The plot of the film is an arms dealer is about unleash a weapon that will wipe out all life on earth and it's up to the Joe's to stop it. In all honesty the plot isn't that bad but it's not exactly good either it's alot more complicated then it really needs to be with a ton of plot twists which aren't needed. This movie would have been better if the plot was alot more simple and alot more easy to follow but that's just what I think.

Starring in the film is Channing Tatum as Conrad S. Hauser / Duke , Marlon Wayans as Wallace A. Weems / Ripcord , Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Hershel Dalton / Heavy Duty , Dennis Quaid as General Clayton M. Abernathy / Hawk , Rachel Nichols as Shana M. O'Hara / Scarlett , Ray Park as Snake Eyes , Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Rex Lewis , Christopher Eccleston as Laird James McCullen , Sienna Miller as Anastasia DeCobray / Baroness and Byung-hun Lee as Thomas Arashikage / Storm Shadow.

Let's take a second to talk about the acting because in my opinion like the plot it wasn't bad but at the same time it wasn't good either. You can tell that those involved are trying their best to put in a decent performance but what let's the actors down in my opinion is the script which gives them nothing to work with so you could have had the best actors in the world starring in this movie and they would only have been able to turn in an OK performance since an actor can only do so much there needs to be some help in the script.

Now apart from taking inspiration from the G.I. Joe toy line and cartoon the film is also drawing inspiration from the G.I. Joe comics. However I have no idea what was taken from the comics and what was taken from say the cartoon but I do have to give the makers of the film credit for taking things from the various Joe media and somehow making it fit into a movie which i'm sure couldn't have been an easy thing to do.

I really can't even say if this is a good adaptation or not because there are so many versions of this franchise out there each one taking on a different tone to the one that came before it. I can say that this one is a lot more serious then the cartoon (i've only seen the animated movie) which is both a good and bad thing it's a good thing because it can be used to make the villains more threatening but it's a bad thing because the set up really does require that this be a goofy type of movie.

The CGI for the film was handled by both Digital Domain and Moving Picture Company both of whom have worked on various films creating great effects. So then you will be expecting me to say that the effects are good well your kind of right because while there are some effects in the film which look good just look at the Paris sequence as prime example there are also some effects which just look bad.

Now I will grant you this there are more good effects in the movie then there are bad ones but that only makes the bad effects stand out more. For example the doors on the Joes base are CGI and they look horrible you can tell that they were done in a computer and yet when you look at again the Paris sequence the effects in that part of the movie actually look good I just wish that the film had good effects all throughout the movie and you can tell when they switch out the real actor for a CGI character because it looks bad.

There are two characters in the film which get alot of focus and backstory and they really don't need it and they are Baroness and Snake Eyes. In my opinion these characters didn't need that much focus because it takes away some of the mystery as to who they are and what there past was like. There's nothing wrong with keeping things out of public knowledge but to the film makers credit Baroness's backstory does add to the story.

Even tho this film does have a more serious tone then perhaps the cartoon did that doesn't mean that there aren't jokes in this film. Sadly tho even tho some of the jokes are indeed funny it's the fact that there are jokes which is the issue because it conflicts with the tone that the film is trying to create and so like I said before I would have preferred it if the film was alot less serious and lot more goofy because if anything should be goofy this is it.

Now then ladies and gents since this is an action film that does mean that we have to talk about the action in the film itself. Honestly the action is where the film is the most fun at least in my opinion because you get to see why alot of the team are there and that is something that really does work for me and it helps that they do some pretty creative action action. The main issue that I have is that the action scenes go on for a tad to long in my opinion each action scene goes on for a really long time it gets to the point where it's no longer fun to watch anymore and you can't wait for the next scene.

This is something that I noticed alot with the movie as well because there are alot of scenes that just go on and on. it was getting to the point where I was getting stuff ready for this review and that's something that I shouldn't be doing when a movie is on heck i;m even sure that I felt like falling asleep a few times just to pass the boredom the editor could have done a better job of cutting down scenes just so each one doesn't over stay it's welcome.

Overall this isn't a bad film but it's not a good one either for everything that;s good about the film and that it gets right there are more things that it gets wrong and that are bad. I have no idea why they chose to make this film more serious when it just doesn't work with the fact that your including alot of jokes but I guess that's what you get when you hire the director the 1999 Mummy film and so this film gets a 4.5 out of 10 from me.