Movie Review: G.I. Joe – The Rise of Cobra (2009)
Review in a word: Awesome!
Definitely worth a visit to the theater. This is a movie adaptation of the famous G.I. Joe cartoon by Hasbro. It tells of the rise of the infamous bad guy, Cobra. All the major characters are in this movie that you might remember – Cobra, General Hawk, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Dr. Mindbender, Destro, Heavy Duty, and more. The story is set in the future, where weapons expert, James McCullen creates a set of warheads infused with nanotechnology capable of eating through any metal. He is playing for both sides – using NATO to fund it, but then stealing them to use for his own purposes to try and establish a new world order through destruction. Both sides are equipped with some very cool weapons and vehicles which they use throughout the movie to try and stop each other. The special effects were well done!
OK, all you action junkies – this movie is filled with it! And the weapons are awesome. There are guns that shoot massive pulses of energy, laser guns, virtually indestructible suites that allow the wearer to run as fast as a car and take gun fire, high tech submarines, helicopters, and much more. They were very creative at coming up with weapons for this movie. I didn’t find any parts of this movie boring – I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. The plot was actually pretty good and developed the characters a bit through a series of flashbacks. What I really liked was the development of the Cobra character. He is actually a scientist who, through a serious accident, has to breath with the aid of a mouthpiece. His true identity and relationship to a couple of the characters is revealed near the end of the movie.
Speaking of the characters in the movie, I really enjoyed the vast array of interesting characters. Snake Eyes was bad ass! He didn’t utter a word during the entire movie (and they explain why at one point) but almost never took a hit in the movie because of his expert martial arts skills. Storm Shadow was also very cool and played the role of Snake Eyes’ arch enemy. And they all did a pretty good job of acting – not the greatest, but not bad either. Even if you don’t quite remember the original cartoon, you don’t really need to for this movie. It is a good movie for both die-hard fans as well as newbies. In addition, there was just the right amount of humor in this movie. I’ve been to movies that were not comedies that went overboard on the laughs and ruined the movie for me. Not the case here. They were smart about this in the plot. There were some cliched lines here and there, but they are easy to overlook. To all those critics out there who say this movie is filled with plot holes, give me a break. This is a movie based on a cartoon, not reality! I give this movie a 4 out of 5 stars.
