GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

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I played with my brother’s GI Joe figures when I was a kid.  I didn’t watch the cartoon since I thought it was silly. I don’t really remember much about them including their names so it would have helped if some characters had more of an introduction in the movie. It then made me sad when some of the characters in the movie didn’t get a backstory or I didn’t even know their names until the end credits.

I would have much rather learned more about Heavy Duty than watch Channing Tatum, who played Duke, try to act. He was horrible! He had one facial expression for when he was concentrating, surprised, angry, sad or happy. It is the face in the poster. There, now you have seen his acting range. I would have much rather the producers had done a better casting job with Duke and Ripcord. It would have made it a lot more enjoyable. I tried to give Marlon Wayans the benefit of the doubt. He played his role too jokey. He could have added comic relief in a better way, but it became tiresome to watch. It was too bad since I love comic relief in action movies.

Beyond the two central characters dealing with poor casting choices, I thought the rest of the cast was decent. I enjoyed Christopher Eccleston as McCullen and Sienna Miller was surprisingly good. I always like Dennis Quaid, even though at times he seemed to almost go too far into corny, but then reeled it back in. I did like the back story between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. The lips on Snake Eyes mask did freak me out a bit though. I’m not sure why they were there.

As for the action sequences, I thought they were well done. They were thrilling and I knew what was going on for the most part until the end scenes underwater. Sometimes I had no idea which submarine thing was on which side. I also was confused when once there were just two ships head to head and the one of them had an army of ships appear out of nowhere for support. It completely surprised the other guys who didn’t see them coming into view. Magic!

I haven’t brought up the plot because who cares! It’s a pretty simple one, which most involves chasing a briefcase around where sometimes they need to be careful with it and other times they can use it to smash someone in the head with it. I guess it just depends on the circumstance. I just went with it since at least I thought it made more sense than the Transformer movies.

Rating: B-

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