*Note: I never like to spoil any details of a movie in my reviews, but in this case I may spoil some of the nature of plot twists, but I’ll refrain from outright spoiling anything. So if you want to see this movie and don’t want any kind of details spoiled whatsoever, you may want to wait to read this.

Pork-chop Sandwiches!

This is a terrible movie. You may as well know that. In fact, calling this movie terrible may be insulting to one of my most used adjectives.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is possibly the worst in a very disappointing lineup of Summer blockbusters. Like Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen before it, it takes a classic Hasbro franchise for the sake of attracting an audience, wrapping it around a horrible script, and proceeding to strip it of everything that fans love about the franchise to begin with. Just like Transformers there is not even a moment of reprieve from the ‘anti film-making’ that is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In my review of Transformers I said I tried to like it  because I’m a lifelong fan of the series of which it’s based. Unfortunately, Rise of Cobra is so bad that I just can’t pretend that there’s anything technically good about it, even as a fan.

Let’s start with the plot: Iconic G.I. Joe hero Duke and his less iconic buddy Ripcord are military soldiers who very abruptly get recruited to the G.I Joe squadron to stop the nefarious plots of the bad guys (later called Cobra) who wish to use nano-machine warfare to spread chaos across the globe. It may not sound so bad from my wording, but be assured the details of this plot are muddled and swimming in ridiculousness, not to mention very idiotic dialogue.

Quite frankly I think this film would make more sense if it was The Rise of G.I. Joe as apposed to The Rise of Cobra. The villains are already an evil organization, so why are they not already Cobra? It would make more sense if we saw the formation of the G.I. Joes as a counteract to Cobra. But in this film, there is no sense.

I may be a strong supporter of things like science fiction, but this film tries to brush of the ridiculousness of its nature by explaining all the whosits and whatsits galore through the aforementioned nano-machines. We have people getting visual images of the memories of a recently deceased bad guy, one of the major villains getting a shape shifting face lift (after moments of being introduced to the character), a man’s entire head being encased in some kind of metal substance (which is intended to heal a burned up face), and a whole lot of ka-razy nonsense. All of these (among other things) are presented in such a way that you can almost feel your I.Q. drop as you witness what is happening onscreen. Somehow I managed to make it through the entire movie (I must have amazing willpower), though my intelligence left about halfway through the film, because it had never been so insulted in its entire life.

One of the “better points” I mentioned in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was the fact that the special effects could be impressive, that isn’t the case here. The CGI is somewhat mediocre in its best moments, and painfully laughable at its worst. None of the special effects looked at all realistic (you know what I mean), in one scene we even see a CGI polar bear who would probably look a whole lot better had he been searching the arctic for a bottle of Coca-cola. And the aforementioned ‘metalic-headed man’ had me cracking up aloud for everyone in the theater to hear. Normally I restrain myself from interrupting a movie in anyway, but there were various points in the film in which I couldn’t control my laughter. After all, if we don’t laugh, we cry.

Back on the subject of Cobra and incoherent nonsense, we never really know who is in charge of the villainous group (until they become Cobra at the end of the film, that isn’t really a spoiler as it’s in the film’s title), at earlier parts of the movie, we are led to believe it is the bitter Scotsman, James McCullen, who indeed presents himself as the head honcho. But later the film has us thinking(?) that a man referred to only as the “Doctor” is the brains of the organization, even when earlier film dialogue almost screams to us that he’s merely McCullen’s lackey. And it isn’t presented in the you-thought-I-was-just-a-henchman-but-I’m-really-the-villain kind of way either, the film just appears to outright not know who its own villain is!

To bring up Transformers yet again, I have to say that while Transformers had some giant robot induced explosions going on, Rise of Cobra displays its action with all the grace and charm of a panicked chimpanzee continuously tripping on marbles, arms flailing about. Every so called action scene is unintelligible and far too hyperactive for its own good.

The humor is also as downright dumb (to be blunt) as the rest of the movie, and happens to be the only aspect of the movie I couldn’t laugh at. The humor doesn’t consist of the same idiotic innuendos that greatly ruined Transformers, though all the racial stereotypes are still intact.  I could imagine more then a few people would roll their eyes at these predictably corny (and maybe offensive) stereotypical jokes.

On this subject I may as well bring up the character Snake-eyes, who as G.I. Joe fans will know is the ninja of the group (because it’s required by law that all of these franchises must have a ninja). In various scenes of the film Snake-eyes (randomly) reflects on his childhood in Japan, training to become a ninja along with the kid who would grow up to be  Storm Shadow, the personal ninja of the bad guys. In these ridiculous flashbacks, we learn that Snake-eyes is inexplicably Caucasian. Why is it in these kind of movies that these kind of characters always end up being Caucasian, even when it makes no sense? Oh and Snake-eyes learns the way of the ninja in some kind of ninja dojo in what appears to be ancient Japan… Either Snake-eyes is really old or the filmmakers aren’t aware of the technological advances Japan has made in the last few centuries.

As a whole, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra isn’t an action film. It is a comical satire of the action film genre, comprised of every conceivable cliche, convention and archetype stacked together in the worst and most predictable ways imaginable. There is even a plot twist involving the character “The Doctor” in which I once again burst out with thunderous laughter at its predictability and poor presentation (as well as a comically bad makeup job).

All in all, G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra is how I would imagine having a root canal would feel without the Novocaine, only not as enjoyable. It is an absolute disaster of a movie, a cinematic train wreck and a theatrical eyesore. It is without a doubt one of the worst films of the year. However, I will say that when giving this deeper thought, I actually prefer this movie to Transformers 2. Because I can actually picture myself watching Rise of the Cobra again, if even for just a good laugh, but I just don’t want to watch Revenge of the Fallen again.

While watching this movie I kept asking myself “If G.I. Joe won’t stop ’til the fight’s done, and if G.I. Joe won’t stop ’til the fight’s won, then please let the fight be done and tell me that G.I Joe has won already!!” But the question most people will be asking is can anyone ever love G.I. Joe again?

Yo Joe!

(1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 10, rated)

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