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Ghoser777 · 10:00 AM

Seriously, this is the first move I have ever thrown my hands up in disgust at (and multiple times too). For example:

1) Almost all knock offs will pay homage to the original - the kung-fu grip comment was funny, the "Knowing is half the battle" reference was so terribly done it almost ruined the whole movie for me by itself. It might have just been Quaid's delivery/performance, but the line really was awful.

2) The part where Ripcord "magically" realizes that Cobra found the "Pit" via the homing device with the warheads that McCullen had the Joe's activate without their knowing by using the unlock code was absolutely ridiculous. There was no explanation how he deduced that.

3) There was some pretty obvious editing issues. For example, in the Paris chase scene after the Hummer gets hit by the train and flips over, the Baroness is clearly bloodied in the face. But when she's running through the next building, there's clearly no blood on her face. Then when she's in her aircraft a few moments later, the blood is back.

4) Why do action movies have to go crazy with computer graphics and gimmicks? Scarlet's invisibility cloak works because something like that actually exists, where as the GI Joe near invincibility suits that can be thrown around like rag dolls without taking damage and don't hurt the wearer are just silly. Way too many times, especially during the undersea battles, the scenes looked computer animated - I just couldn't get immersed in the situation. And Breaker getting "images" out of the dead guy's brain seemed really unoriginal - something similar was even done in Wild Wild West, where they shined light through a guys eyes to see what was burned into his retina.

5) What ever happened to Dr. Mindbender (who we only see in a flashback)? I don't know if I ever heard Heavy Duty's name get called (I had to look him up online to figure out his name). Why no Gung Ho, Lady Jane, Avalanche, Bazooka, Swift Kick... well, I guess they couldn't fit everyone in.

There were some okay things. Ripcord annoyed me at first, but got better through out. The revelation of Rex being the Doctor wasn't shocking but wasn't awful. I wasn't expecting Rex to become Cobra Commander (I do dislike his mask).

That's all I got.

Rumor · Aug 10, 2009, 12:23 AM

Um, spoiler tag?

downinflames68 · Aug 10, 2009, 12:59 AM

Just wondering... what exactly where you expecting, going into this? I mean, you saw the trailers, right?

Chuckit · Aug 10, 2009, 01:11 AM

I thought the trailers looked like it might be fun, but then I heard they were refusing to screen it for critics. No good movie has ever gotten that treatment. That just means they don't want the public to have advance warning so it can at least get good opening-weekend grosses before word of mouth murders it.

brassplayersrock² · Aug 10, 2009, 02:31 AM

Nice cleavage....

ShortcutToMoncton · Aug 10, 2009, 06:24 AM

You obviously didn't stop to consider the absolutely ridiculous trailer, and the fact that the director has a resume which includes The Jungle Book, The Mummy series, and Van Helsing.

There need be no "strike three."

greg

Captain Obvious · 07:13 AM

The second I heard Marlon Wayans was cast to be in the movie all hopes of this being something that would pay homage to my childhood GI Joe fanaticism was dashed.

F'king Marlon Wayans?
Are they seriously thinking any movie with him has ever turned out to be good? And who the hell was Ripcord anyway? If they were going to throw in a black character just to round out the cast it should have been Roadblock and not some some guy that no one had heard of in the cartoons or comics.

I didn't see it. I won't go to the theater to see it. And I am not one bit surprised it sucked. They had a chance to make it into a good franchise but the studio didn't invest in a good writing team.

jokell82 · Aug 10, 2009, 07:11 AM

When it was screen-tested the movie had the worst ratings in the history of Paramount. So yeah, I don't think I'll be going to see this one...

starman · Aug 10, 2009, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by downinflames68

Just wondering... what exactly where you expecting, going into this? I mean, you saw the trailers, right?

There WAS a time when an action movie was pretty airtight (Aliens).

Dakar V · Aug 10, 2009, 10:37 AM

Your first clue this movie was ****ed was when they fired the director during editing.

ort888 · Aug 10, 2009, 10:39 AM

It's a movie based on a 25 year old series of 30 minute toy commercials.

ShortcutToMoncton · Aug 10, 2009, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by starman

There WAS a time when an action movie was pretty airtight (Aliens).

To be fair, Aliens rates as one of the greatest all-time films in its genre (and I don't really know if that would be "action" to be honest). It's a brilliant movie.

I'm not even asking that much. Just stop giving these movies to Michael Bay and McG and Stephen Sommers - directors that want go out of their way to avoid credibility and want only to make it "bigger, louder, splashier and stupider." How is that a good thing in any way? It's a race to the bottom, is what it is.

Basically, I want Christopher Nolan or Danny Boyle to direct all movies from now on. All of them.

greg

ShortcutToMoncton · Aug 10, 2009, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by ort888

It's a movie based on a 25 year old series of 30 minute toy commercials.

So? Why does that mean you can't make a good movie out of it?

You can make a good movie out of anything you want. You can just say, "here's a 25 year old series of 30 minute toy commercials - let's make a ****ing awesome movie out of this."

greg

Mrjinglesusa · Aug 10, 2009, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by ort888

It's a movie based on a 25 year old series of 30 minute toy commercials.

So? So was Transformers and by all accounts even THAT was better than this load of crap.

MallyMal · Aug 10, 2009, 11:32 AM

Ha! I knew G.I. Joe:Resolute was going to be better than the movie.

SpaceMonkey · Aug 10, 2009, 11:35 AM

I haven't seen it, but I found Ebert's review hilarious. Truly you do not even need to step into a theater to enjoy this film.

analogue SPRINKLES · Aug 10, 2009, 11:54 AM

I saw it and it wasn't half as bad as I thought it was going to be. Totally over the top but it was fun to just look at as long as your brain was set to off. The original cartoon was pretty damn stupid also.

ort888 · Aug 10, 2009, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Mrjinglesusa

So? So was Transformers and by all accounts even THAT was better than this load of crap.

I mean, sure, it's possible. A movie based on a Disney Theme Ride was pretty good.

Still, it's best to lower expectations. I plan to rent GI Joe when it comes out and my expectations will be lower then low.

jokell82 · Aug 10, 2009, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by Mrjinglesusa

So? So was Transformers and by all accounts even THAT was better than this load of crap.

Even if one turd smells better than another turd they're both pieces of ****.

Ghoser777 · Aug 10, 2009, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

The original cartoon was pretty damn stupid also.

Blasphemy.

besson3c · Aug 10, 2009, 01:44 PM

I went to a drive in to see a GI Joe Transformers doubleheader, and I think that both sucked, although Transformers was far worse.

analogue SPRINKLES · Aug 10, 2009, 02:06 PM

Originally Posted by Ghoser777

Blasphemy.

Even as a kid I thought some of the characters were pretty homo-erotic and the cast looked like they were village people rejects.

That aside I always laughed as every time a plane was hit and destroyed the pilot would auto-eject the exact second without fail.

Not to mention in every battle the air would literally be filled with both blue and red lasers flying in every square inch of sky yet GI Joes would be running around the ground waving their arms around in the air and not taking cover and were never actually hit. The all went to stormtrooper school for aiming I guess.

Also I think I just watched the show because I wanted to know what cobra commander looked like under that hood and I just found out 2 days ago that they NEVER showed it! Baaaa! (same goes for Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget).

Plus my mom didn't let me have the toys as they were gun/soldier based and promoted war and fighting. I had transformers up to the teeth though.

Oh and I thought Transformers 2 was much much worse.

besson3c · Aug 10, 2009, 02:45 PM

GI Joe and Transformers were both incredible missed opportunities.

Clearly both of these movies were trying to capture the imagination and interest of teenage males, creating a next generation of fans such as many of us were in the 80s. However, I think what really worked for us in the 80s wasn't so much the stories themselves, but the imagination this sparked. The whole epic science fiction/fantasy thing was fairly rare... There were several movies, but not entire franchises, episodic movies, TV series, etc. aside from Star Wars and Star Trek where characters and story arcs were explored and writers could do more than what is easily possible within a 1.5 hour movie. Today, there are several, and certainly if Star Wars were to have been released today it wouldn't have been nearly as successful as it was in 1977. However, back then it was the Transformers and GI Joe which really caught on with kids, along with Star Wars and to a lesser extent Star Trek.

So, these most recent movies missed out on giving fans my age who grew up with the Transformers and GI Joe something to be excited for. Why?

Many people suggest that there simply wasn't enough material in these concepts to build good movies out of. I disagree, I think you can build good stories out of practically any premise, these movies just lacked good stories. I never feared the enemy really - neither their power nor intellect, motivations, the extent of their evil nature, whatever. These villains were just the generic "*cackle cackle* I'll get you!" cheese ball types. These stories gave us nothing to hope for really, nothing to surprise us, no moral questions, no empathy for any of the characters, no real development of any of them, no vulnerabilities, no limits to what they can and cannot do, no real point. This was the problem, all of the CGI and dialog and other stuff which has been widely criticized is just symptomatic of this larger problem, I think.

besson3c · Aug 10, 2009, 02:58 PM

Contrast these movies to Battlestar Galactica (the new series, of coruse), Firefly/Serenity, or the Dark Knight... Each of these movies/TV series were built from great stories that just happened to be set in space or be of the superhero genre. They would have made great books, the stories were not about the visuals.

Could you imagine a book about Transformers 2?

"Optimus Prime spins around, debris flies everywhere, he punches Megatron to no effect, knocks a tree down, looks determined, prepares for the counter punch, more tree limbs everywhere"

Why did the Transformers bother punching each other anyway when that was so pointless, and how do you know how to kill them? It looks like some you kill by busting their head, some by busting their hearts. Why waste time with punches and flipping them over and stuff? It's not like they get tired or experience pain

"Ahhhh, that's my sore back"

In the absence of a good story all of these 4934809384 problems are definitely more apparent. I can overlook all sorts of stuff if the story is compelling enough though.

exca1ibur · Aug 10, 2009, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious

The second I heard Marlon Wayans was cast to be in the movie all hopes of this being something that would pay homage to my childhood GI Joe fanaticism was dashed.

F'king Marlon Wayans?
Are they seriously thinking any movie with him has ever turned out to be good? And who the hell was Ripcord anyway? If they were going to throw in a black character just to round out the cast it should have been Roadblock and not some some guy that no one had heard of in the cartoons or comics.

I didn't see it. I won't go to the theater to see it. And I am not one bit surprised it sucked. They had a chance to make it into a good franchise but the studio didn't invest in a good writing team.

Bingo, that pretty much did it for me. Once I heard that, it was over for me. Michael Clarke Duncan as Roadblock would have been fine with me. At least he fits the character.

The super suits with them running around. The ONLY reason I'd want to see the movie is for a Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow fight, other than that... forget it. Either way when it comes to ABC or NBC, I 'might' watch it.

Ghoser777 · Aug 10, 2009, 03:43 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Also I think I just watched the show because I wanted to know what cobra commander looked like under that hood and I just found out 2 days ago that they NEVER showed it! Baaaa! (same goes for Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget).

If you watch G.I. Joe the Movie (cartoon), they show Cobra Commander's face (semi mutilated).

Chuckit · Aug 10, 2009, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Contrast these movies to Battlestar Galactica (the new series, of coruse), Firefly/Serenity, or the Dark Knight... Each of these movies/TV series were built from great stories that just happened to be set in space or be of the superhero genre. They would have made great books, the stories were not about the visuals.

Movies and books are inherently different media. There are a lot of good books that are hard to translate into good movies and vice-versa. Just because you can't cleanly translate from one medium to the other doesn't mean it's bad (although Transformers was and I suspect GI Joe is as well). For example, Tarantino's movies are generally agreed to be pretty good, but I don't think most would make very good books — "The Bride kicked one guy. He fell down. Another tried to hit her from the side, but she stabbed him."

For an even more extreme example, check out Dziga Vertov's 1929 experimental documentary Man with a Movie Camera, which is purely visual and doesn't even have a central point. You couldn't translate that into a book at all, but it's really striking when you see it.

scottiB · 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

I saw it and it wasn't half as bad as I thought it was going to be. Totally over the top but it was fun to just look at as long as your brain was set to off.

Yep. I never watched the cartoons, but the wife and I had a fairly good time. I found the CG to be minor league, though. Seems that Sommers' movies have pretty poor CG in comparison to other action movies of similar vintage. The original Mummy though that was done by ILM was very good, though.

analogue SPRINKLES · Aug 10, 2009, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by scottiB

Yep. I never watched the cartoons, but the wife and I had a fairly good time. I found the CG to be minor league, though. Seems that Sommers' movies have pretty poor CG in comparison to other action movies of similar vintage. The original [i]Mummy[i] though that was done by ILM was very good, though.

Ya the CG was pretty bad at parts. The paris chase looked like a video game half the time. The underwater battle was also hard to make sense of.

Captain Obvious · Aug 10, 2009, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

GI Joe and Transformers were both incredible missed opportunities.

This had way more potential than the Transformers series.
GI Joe had character back stories. It had interpersonal relationships between many of the main story figures. Plus there was far less need for CGI to sell the movie. This should have been a more grown up version of what we knew as kids

I have no idea how much this movie delved into any of that but it was there to be plucked from the existing canon. This was the only comic book i read as a little kid and if the studios could come up with half decent films for Mission Impossible, Xmen, and Bourn they could have done it with GI Joe.

It would have only benefited everyone involved as not only would it have made a crap load of money in the theaters but it had a toy line begging to be an additional long term revenue source. Hasbro should be livid.

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Plus my mom didn't let me have the toys as they were gun/soldier based and promoted war and fighting. I had transformers up to the teeth though.

lame

analogue SPRINKLES · Aug 10, 2009, 07:15 PM

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious

lame

Guess you have out-cooled me

Jawbone54 · Aug 10, 2009, 07:28 PM

Every one of you who went and saw it at the theater knew in advance that it was probably going to suck, and you went anyways, contributing to the idea in Hollywood that "If we have a popular brand, it doesn't matter if the movie sucks or not...it'll make milllllllllions."

ShortcutToMoncton · Aug 10, 2009, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

Every one of you who went and saw it at the theater knew in advance that it was probably going to suck, and you went anyways, contributing to the idea in Hollywood that "If we have a popular brand, it doesn't matter if the movie sucks or not...it'll make milllllllllions."

This. Spot on. The "I had to see it even though I knew it'd suck" crowd ruins a lot of things.

greg

Eriamjh · Aug 10, 2009, 09:51 PM

Cue links to those funny re-edited GI Joe commercials!
YouTube - GI Joe - Pork Chop Sandwiches

LegendaryPinkOx · Aug 10, 2009, 11:13 PM

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

Cue links to those funny re-edited GI Joe commercials!

You're the ringleader.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsoKMKq0qHU

ghporter · Aug 11, 2009, 07:58 AM

Movie. Based. On. (Lame-ified). Action. Figure.

'Nuf said?

Jawbone54 · Aug 11, 2009, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Movie. Based. On. (Lame-ified). Action. Figure.

'Nuf said?

Batman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Superman...

Also...lame-ified?

SpaceMonkey · Aug 11, 2009, 12:39 PM

But all of those characters pre-dated their action figures.

Jawbone54 · Aug 11, 2009, 01:53 PM

I think that's irrelevant. Popular "kiddie" franchises can be done right, and some have.

Dark Knight, Iron Man, Batman Begins, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man...good.
Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Superman Returns (debatable), Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3...bad.

These kinds of movies can be done well, and they can be done very, very, very poorly. G.I. Joe hasn't received abysmal reviews, necessarily, but Rotten Tomatoes currently lists it with 41% favorable reviews. Not great, but people will still line up all day to see it.

If the Batman franchise can be done right, even with all its unbelievable elements, then G.I. Joe could've been done right too.

Dakar V · Aug 11, 2009, 01:54 PM

You're still wrong.

kylef · Aug 11, 2009, 02:14 PM

Saw it today, I agree with #3. In the water scenes, it was painfully obvious.

Sienna looked great in an action-y way.

SpaceMonkey · Aug 11, 2009, 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

I think that's irrelevant. Popular "kiddie" franchises can be done right, and some have.

Sure, it's possible someone could have created a much better G.I. Joe movie. I'm just saying that in the case of Batman and the like, you have more or less a fully-formed character and back-story for the screenwriter to play around with, and in the case where the chief inspiration is a series of plastic toys, the screenwriter has to invent more on his/her own. This just makes it less likely that the resulting film will have compelling characters and story.

ort888 · Aug 11, 2009, 02:26 PM

Chuckit · Aug 11, 2009, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

Sure, it's possible someone could have created a much better G.I. Joe movie. I'm just saying that in the case of Batman and the like, you have more or less a fully-formed character and back-story for the screenwriter to play around with, and in the case where the chief inspiration is a series of plastic toys, the screenwriter has to invent more on his/her own. This just makes it less likely that the resulting film will have compelling characters and story.

But the inspiration for this movie was not just a series of plastic toys. These characters have already been established in comics and cartoons, just like Batman, Iron Man, etc. The toys did come first, but that doesn't really make much of a difference. The cartoon had been around for decades by the time this movie was conceived.

SpaceMonkey · Aug 11, 2009, 02:49 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

But the inspiration for this movie was not just a series of plastic toys. These characters have already been established in comics and cartoons, just like Batman, Iron Man, etc. The toys did come first, but that doesn't really make much of a difference. The cartoon had been around for decades by the time this movie was conceived.

I have not watched the cartoon, but my completely uninformed impression of it is that it was equally as vapid as the recent movie. In contrast, Batman had already been reinterpreted numerous times in more "adult" contexts prior to Batman Begins.

Captain Obvious · Aug 11, 2009, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

my completely uninformed impression of it is that it was equally as vapid as the recent movie.

In contrast, Batman had already been reinterpreted numerous times in more "adult" contexts prior to Batman Begins.

Well lets not forget you still had the 60s Batman series, their subsequent movies, as well as the hokey Batman Forever plus Batman & Robin movies that reinterpreted those characters in a far more vapid and empty manner than this first attempt.

There's over 40 years of comics worth of back story on these GI Joe characters. There was enough development that could have been borrowed from that to make this a more compelling action movie.

SpaceMonkey · Aug 11, 2009, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious

Well lets not forget you still had the 60s Batman series, their subsequent movies, as well as the hokey Batman Forever plus Batman & Robin movies that reinterpreted those characters in a far more vapid and empty manner than this first attempt.

There's over 40 years of comics worth of back story on these GI Joe characters. There was enough development that could have been borrowed from that to make this a more compelling action movie.

I'm not sure I'm really arguing with you. I'm just saying that the source material matters, and it shouldn't really be a surprise that the first live action G.I. Joe movie is about big explosions. It's the path of least resistance. Maybe 10 years from now someone will write the "Dark Knight Returns" graphic novel equivalent for the G.I. Joe universe so we can all enjoy a few decades of Tim Burton-inspired G.I. Joe movies, or a time vortex will open up and take us to an alternate universe where G.I. Joe began not as a plastic figure but as a pulp-fiction detective character in the noir hard-boiled tradition, but until then we're going to have to wait for a more inspired screenwriter to pick up the concept.

Captain Obvious · Aug 11, 2009, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

or a time vortex will open up and take us to an alternate universe where G.I. Joe began not as a plastic figure but as a pulp-fiction detective character in the noir hard-boiled tradition, but until then we're going to have to wait for a more inspired screenwriter to pick up the concept.

Oh come on. The Batman character you talk about in the movies exists in a universe where there are space aliens and superhuman rivals. GI Joe began as characters modeled after US military archetypes. Let's not make it out as if Batman has some sort of serious literary origin.
This current incarnation is really just an exaggerated special forces unit. This movie didn't have to be any more ridiculous than the James Bond or Mission Impossible series

Jawbone54 · 03:58 PM

I agree with all of what Chuckit said in response to SpaceMonkey under the best pie chart ever.

G.I. Joe isn't just based upon the toys, and it's not just based on the cartoons that, as someone else said earlier, were a "commercial" for the toys (which I'd disagree with). The comics were long-running and developed some really great source material for a movie over the course of several years. The Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow backstory alone could fill up a script. There's a ton of history from which a screenwriter could develop a killer script. Paired together with a director that's made something other than steaming piles of crap during his career, it could've been a fantastic movie that would've had 20-somethings all around the world giggling with glee.

SpaceMonkey · Aug 11, 2009, 03:53 PM

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious

Oh come on. The Batman character you talk about in the movies exists in a universe where there are space aliens and superhuman rivals. GI Joe began as characters modeled after US military archetypes. Let's not make it out as if Batman has some sort of serious literary origin.
This current incarnation is really just an exaggerated special forces unit. This movie didn't have to be any more ridiculous than the James Bond or Mission Impossible series

I think by referring to it as a "pulp-fiction detective character" I made it clear that I don't think that Batman had a "serious literary origin" (in the sense that I think you mean it). We're still talking about stuff that's pretty juvenile.

However, in one instance you are talking about a character that was developed with the primary objective being to tell a story, and in the other you're talking about characters that were developed with the primary objective being to sell merchandise with no inherent storytelling function. Batman, James Bond, and the Mission Impossible characters fall into the former. G.I. Joe falls into the latter. I think that's important to the evolution of the characters and it's why I say that a screenwriter trying to draft a "serious" G.I. Joe story has a lot more work to do in terms of developing the characters than a screenwriter drafting a Batman script.

This does not preclude the possibility that someone could draft a good G.I. Joe script.