Any child of the eighties probably remembers fondly G.I. Joe either as a kid friendly cartoon show or a harder edge comic book from Marvel. I know I do. So of course I forwent sleep on Thursday to go to the Midnight showing of the new movie G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. It is agood popcorn movie, enjoyable while you are watching it, but afterwards you start thinking about all of the plot holes and in the story.
The plot focuses on Army Captain Duke (Channing Tatum) and his buddy Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) who are escorting a new weapon, a warhead full of nanites that eat metal, when they are attacked by unnamed terrorists who try to steal the weapon. After the terrorists are driven off by a super secret anti terrorist organization called G.I. Joe, Duke and Ripcord are recruited to help track down this new threat, mainly due to the leader of the attack was Duke’s former fiancee, which leads to a bunch of back story about Duke, and another attack where the terrorists succeed in retrieving the weapon which leads to more back story, before the terrorists attack Paris, but that just turns out to be red herring to distract from what they are really after.
As an action film it is killer bee (as Kinky Freidman would say). As long as you turn your brain off and just watch, it is a lot of fun with an exciting attack on the Joe base, a chase through the streets of Paris and an underwater battle at Cobra’s base, all full of explosions, raging gun battles and ninja fights. The plot is a by the numbers cliche riddled story we’ve seen before. It seems half the bad guys have a past history with one of the good guys.
The acting is all pretty decent, Marlon Wayons is appropriately humorous as the side kick, Tatum is tough but angst ridden. Denis Quad as Joe leader General Hawk is stern but compassionate. Of course everyone is blown of the screen by Christopher Eccelston (most successful post Doctor Who actor of the bunch) as evil munitions seller McCullen who becomes Destro at the end. With a dead on Scottish accent thick enough to smash bricks with, he smugly struts, gloats and
pontificates his way through the film, chewing up scenery like he hasn’t eaten in a month. If you aren’t into mindless action scenes, you should see the movie just for his performance, it alone is well worth the price of a ticket.
