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G.I Joe - The Rise of the Cobra |
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Technology might seem helpful to you, with its cell phones, computers and life-saving medicines. But those are just things technology uses to lure you into a false sense of security while it secretly molds itself into nuclear warheads, self-flushing toilets and Twitter.
 Now, in G.I. Joe's world, we've got nanomites. They are not the cuddly-but-inane stars of an animated Nickelodeon show. They are not the latest accoutrement in hip-hop gear. They are, in fact, microscopic computerized insects—the repellent offspring of African termites and iPods. Once powered up, they're able to devour anything and everything in their path—unless their path happens to be the human circulatory system. Once inside a person, they stop eating and instead do one of these three things:
a) Transform their host into an evil, remorseless zombie.
B) Encourage "their" body to regenerate and encase itself in a shiny sheath of metal.
C) Allow the human to disguise himself as anyone he wants.
That makes them irresistible to the dastardly evildoers in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra who want utter dominion over Earth. So they steal the tiny creatures from NATO, slap them into nifty, glassy warheads and aim them at the world's best-known cities.
At the head of this cackling cadre of chaos is McCullen, Scottish boss of the M.A.R.S. weapons manufacturing company. As the man behind the creation of the nanomites, you'd think he would've just kept the microscopic beasties for himself instead of selling them to NATO, then undertaking an expensive operation to steal them back. But no one argues with McCullen—not even his host of creepy, flashily dressed compatriots: Not the mysterious Doctor who has a strange fascination with cobras; not Storm Shadow, the white-dressed ninja; and not Baroness, the slinky, leather-clad lady whose main claim to fame may be her nifty sunglasses.
Who can stop these villains from unleashing masses of nanomites on an unsuspecting world? Why, the fearless fighting men and women of G.I. Joe, of course. The Joes, as they collectively call themselves, are elite military personnel from around the world who sacrifice their lives, futures and normal names (there's Hawk, Heavy Duty, Duke, Ripcord and Snake Eyes) to be part of an ultra-exclusive team.
:: Review
Childhood playthings are mindlessly mangling the modern multiplex. Transformers. And now G.I. Joes. What's next? LEGOs? Maybe the movie could be called LEGO: Rise and Fall of the Yellow Brick. It's only been a few weeks since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and since that was one of the worst movies I've seen all year, I couldn't help but ask myself, "Will G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra be as bad? Or worse?"
The answer: Sure, why not?
G.I. Joe doesn't resort to the same level of cheap, crass, sexualized gimmicks the Transformers sequel employs. The women here are sultry—and there's some sexualized violence that shouldn't be ignored—but none of them turn into cyborgs that brandish snakey, metallic tongues. Characters do not incessantly utter f-word facsimiles. And no one's mother eats marijuana-laced brownies.
But the violence here, semi-cartoonish as it may be, is jarring, pervasive and incredibly hard to excuse. This martial boyhood fantasy all but consecrates carnage-filled problem-solving. The Joes don't just mount an assault on evil, they hammer down our senses, too, battering them into bleeding, whimpering submission.
Plus, it's just plain dumb. This is a movie that makes the original cartoon look like a subtle, high-mindedly satirical take on world affairs. This is a movie in which the bad guys blow a hole through the polar ice cap, hoping the ice will crush the submarines hovering underneath.
Let me emphasize that last bit: This is a movie where ice sinks.
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