It's all about the action

G I Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

Certification: PG

Cast: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Rachel Nichols, Sienna Miller, Said Taghmaoui, Byung-HunLee, Ray Park, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Arnold Vosloo

Director: Stephen Sommers

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi

IN A summer where most blockbuster movies were all glamorously flashy with pretentiously convoluted storylines (Transformers, Wolverine), G I Joe: The Rise Of Cobra distances itself slightly from the pack by being honest.

The Rise Of Cobra is an action movie through and through. Audiences going for it expect it to entertain hard with action, and that's exactly what they are getting, if not more.

G I Joe started off as a children's cartoon in the 80's, together with Transformers and many more.

With adaptations from graphic novels paving the road for a new generation of movies, and the evident success in sequels for Transformers, it's only a matter of time before other big names from the 80's like Thundercats and another He-Man hit the big screen.

The Hollywood formula for a movie like G I Joe comes in a familiar packaging. Throw in a young cast of good looking actors, pump in enough budget to shoot almost the whole movie in CGI, and have explosions every other minute for the sake of grandiose.

Heading the cast are Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Rachel Nichols and Sienna Miller; bringing to life the characters Duke, Ripcord, Scarlett and the Baroness respectively.

The supporting cast consist of Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Heavy Duty, Said Taghmaoui as Breaker, Arnold Vosloo as Zartan, Byung-Hun Lee as Storm Shadow and Ray Park as Snake Eyes. Anchoring the pack is veteran Dennis Quaid as General Hawk whose main role is to bark out orders and nothing more.

The writers (Stuart Beattie, David Elliot and Paul Lovett) took the same direction as Star Trek and made this a semi-origin movie whereby Duke and Ripcord start off as outsiders and have to earn their ranks into the elite team of the Joes - wrong decision.

One of the most unnecessary sequences is the training montage which is ineffective in storytelling; though it did give Brandon Fraser a very distracting cameo.

What the movie did right is out of the 118 minutes runtime, 100 of them are all about the action; and they are hard hitting and fast paced. Credit goes to director Stephen Sommers for the smooth transitions and keeping the excitement on a high throughout the entire movie. His slow motions also come in all the right places, creating highlights such as Snake Eyes' intro. Another impressive feat for Sommers is having the camera very still in an ambitious action movie like this so that the audience can see exactly what's going on. Not many directors have done this.

What suffered most are the characters which are not properly written and not consistent at all with the cartoons' direction. The poor writing may also have contributed to the atrocious acting, apart from those who are fortunate enough to be wearing masks.

Just because the hero always gets the girl in Hollywood, Ripcord and Scarlett are duty-bound to induce some hormonal effects. The script is unconvincing and again inconsistent with the history of the Joe's because Snake Eyes and Scarlett was the celebrated couple.

Snake Eyes is by far the coolest character but because of his silence, he cannot be effective in a movie. However, every time he is onscreen, he is doing something cool. If only the writers had waited for a Snake Eyes origin movie before delving into his past with Storm Shadow; those two deserve a movie of their own.

The story is as straight forward as it can get; and even with terrible acting, ridiculous dialogue and cheesy one-liners, the unrelentless and mindless action will keep you gasping for air. Reviewer's Rating: 7 / 10

The Brunei Times