G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Number Rolled: 88

Movie Name/Year: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Genre: Action & Adventure

Length: 117 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Director: Stephen Sommers

Writer: Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, Paul Lovett, Michael Gordon, Stephen Sommers

Actors: Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Brendan Fraser, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Rachel Nichols, Marlon Wayans, Jonathan Pryce, Christopher Eccleston, Ray Park, Arnold Vosloo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Said Taghmaoui, Karolina Kurkove

I want nothing more than to say how much I loved this movie. I want to be able to say it was epic and it did the name “G.I. Joe” proud… but I can’t. Not honestly anyway.

I will say that I didn’t hate the movie. It had its good parts. For instance, some of the action sequences were ridiculous (in a good way). The main characters were played really well. Channing Tatum was a perfect choice for Duke and did his best to breathe life into the character. Marlon Wayans managed to bring out the action with Ripcord without losing that funny edge that suits him. As for Christopher Eccleston… the ninth doctor definitely made the switch from light to dark side seamlessly – though I often found his “accent” a little hard to believe. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was on screen a bit too little for my taste, but I still love him none-the-less. He also shows a great deal more depth in his acting ability than I’ve seen up until now.

As good as the acting was though, there were parts of this movie that I just couldn’t get past. There’s a point where there are some people who are not supposed to be able to feel fear or have any use of self-consideration. Yet those same people are pictured screaming in terror and trying to pull something out of their chest in panic rather than going after their target.

If that wasn’t enough to make one double glance at the screen, the storyline was flat. I knew just about everything that was going to happen within the first twenty minutes of the movie.

I think, perhaps, my problems with the script and direction is a case of too many cooks spoiling the pot. I checked IMDb for the Writer credits and there were five different people listed. I’ve been writing a book with ONE other person and it’s often difficult for us to be on the same page about where we want shit to go.

In the end, the movie didn’t suck. Perhaps I would have had more appreciation for it if I had been an avid watcher of the cartoon series, but even then – my problems still had to do with continuity more than anything else, so maybe not. I don’t regret watching it, but I doubt I’ll be watching it again either.

Overall Opinion – 2/5