G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

If you want to see a movie that is filled with action but devoid of a plot, this is it. This movie does not even come close to Wolverine, Star Trek, and certainly not Transformers II but it is a movie and does have some attractive faces. That is an understatement, Sienna Miller as the Baroness is just ridiculous. Miller is hot in reality but she is out of this world in this movie.

The movie begins in the 17th century or so when a man is being sentenced to death for being caught selling weapons to France's enemy. This man is a long long ancestor to the villian in Gone In 60 Seconds Raymond Calitri. Christopher Eccleston is the actors name and in this film he known as McCullen or Destro. The former when he is the acting CEO but his hidden name is the latter to his covert terrorist organization. He is not like Stark in Iron Man since McCullen is not the one engineering the weapons, it is Kevin J. O'Connor who plays the twisted Dr. Mindbender. He is a master with nano technology. He manipulated nanotechnology to devour entire cities and also alter the human capacity and free will of his fellow man.

This movie starts out good and has some cool action but goes off the ridiculous scale when they show the pit which is based manned by the top scientists and special forces the world has to offer. It is in Egypt, camoflouged by sand and must cost no less than $200 billion. There are several levels, included a massive underground water tank to test underwater weaponry and what not. Transformers the movies are obviously not real but they are accurate to the levels of governments and current technology. GI Joe is just absurd. But atleast people die in this movie, which never occured in the cartoon which we all thought was comical.

Fighter's Channing Tatum is Duke and he does an OK job. He has the tough guy image but his lines are so obviously scripted. He should spend less time in the weight room and a little more in acting class. He is a special forces soldier and is given a task of transporting some nanotechnological weapons. Why they are not more heavily guarded or guarded by the Joes at the outset is beyond me.

This team is also comprised by the funny man Marlon Wayans who pumps up to play Ripcord. Wayans is not an action hero and proves it in this movie but he is funny. He wants to fly planes but is in the process of just ruminating this thought. Ripcord is hurt but Duke puts up a decent fight against this unkown terrorist organization that is soon to be name Cobra. They want those weapons for nefarious purposes. The weapons which are in a suitcase are retrieved by the Joes led by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who plays Heavy Duty. Echo for us Lost fans. Good to see him in this movie despite this movie being pretty weak. The special affects are so obvious, totally unlike Transformers II. This is redemption to me since I never really cared for GI Joe when growing up, always showing a predilection towards Transformers. Since the latter has Michael Bay on its side, Transformers is in good hands. GI Joe has gone the Triple X II route which was just stupid action with my favorite rapper Ice Cube. XXX II displayed action which was so obvious to be unreal, it just sucks the joy away from the film. Certainly the credibility.

This is where the stunning red head Rachel Nichols is shown who plays Shana 'Scarlett' O'Hara. Scarlett is beautiful. The Three Kings Saïd Taghmaoui does not poor oil down anyone's throat in this movie, he is Breaker and is a computer expert. He uses technology to grab traces of thought from someone after they have deceased. Dennis Quaid is General Hawk and he is the leader of the Joes. He is the outside representative to the governments of the world. But his leadership role is rarely seen in this light. The editor of this movie cut his lines short, one in particular that I remember seeing in the previews. Why? This is where a politician asks him what did he call his unit again and Hawk says, "I didn't." The Joes are covert, beyond the Delta Force. But as real as Harry Potter.

So the team retains the nanotechnological weapons after Duke loses about 30 fellow soldiers and alot of hardware. The Joe team does a poor job in identifying themselves which leads to Tatum displaying in pathetic acting skills. I am not sure how his choice as Duke but oh well. Tatum refuses to give up the weapon displaying his inrepidness after Cobra leaves without the weapon they have killed many soldiers to obtain. McCullen is agitated at his girlfriend the Baroness. He orders her to continue the mission but Storm Shadow will accompany her the next time. He is played by Byung-hun Lee and wears white. His nemesis is Snake Eyes who is also part of this Joe team from the outset. He is played by Ray Park. Both are experts with the sword who seem to be able to avoid being shot. Storm Shadow throws ninja stars with skills that would rival the supervillian Bulls Eye. Like I said, this movie is totally fiction. I am not saying someone could not maim or put someone down with a ninja star by this being one's primary weapon and in one scene eliminating four running guards with guns with these stars is just preposterous.

OK, so the Joes return to their myserious base called The Pit and they get to know each other. Duke and Ripcord make the team and show off their skills. Ripcord has the opportunity to hit on Scarlett. Scarlet is scantily clad and running on a treadmill in a massive underground bunker that appears to be teeming with personnel. It appears there is a couple of hundred of soldiers and scientists. This hottie is single and no one is attempting to hit on her until Ripcord comes along, whatever. He is not the only black soldier in the base.

Cobra strikes. The range of assets both sides seem to have is just inane. These weapons would make Predator jealous. Now all of a sudden The Pit only seems to have about 15 soldiers on duty who seem to not be able to press an alarm. Cobra does have a shock wave weapon which can eliminate about 10 men with one blast. The model Karolina Kurkova who has stunning curves is
Courtney A. Kreiger or Cover Girl. Storm Shadow kills her which is just a waste. Not necessary. he could have just rendered her unconscious. The Mummy's and a top enemy in the stunning show 24, Arnold Vosloo is involved in this siege. He is Zartan and he takes hold of the nanotechnoligical weapons after Storm Shadow overtakes General Hawk.

The next major action scene is in France where Cobra uses this weapon to destroy The Eiffel tower. McCullen avenges the French for what they did to his ancestor. His ancestor was a criminal and a traitor so I am not sure how McCullen justifies this. Storm Shadow is the one who fires the weapon which collides with the tower and then devours the metal. Duke jumps into the Cobra escape craft, which resembles Skynet's super fighter craft in the sorry Terminator Salvation, and hits the kill switch. This saves the rest of Paris since the nanobots would have spread around the city eating all the steal in its path.

Cobra has turned a hummer into a super M1 Abram but with more speed. They copied a page from Transformers which is hilarious, the front becomes a collision bumper. This is from the first Transoformers when the Deceptican is just tossing cars all over the high way as he blazes a path after the Allspark and the Autobots and soldiers protecting it. This hummer is being chased by Duke and Ripcord in super suits that have a mini hell fire missiles on their forearms. They only fire this once. What? One shot knocks up the Hummer from the rear, how about fire a few more? What were they planning on doing when reaching it? Snake Eyes was already there. It seemed like they were just getting some exercise and having fun wearing those suits. These suits did everything but fly, nothing short of Iron Man accept that. That Hummer would have been toast despite having its own defenses. It should have been an easy target.

The end of GI Joe is just spectacularly illogical. Cobra's HQ is under the arctic ice in a hideout base that would probably cost about $300 billion to fund. McCullen runs the MARS company which engineers weapons for countries around the world. The are like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and BAE systems to the 5th power. This is why the Pentagon spreads around its funding so not one arms manufacturer could ever sprout this far and wide.

General Hawk is in command of a submarine, which is not simple, that is the size of 10 Red Octobers. It is about 2,000 feet long and about 200 feet wide. Just massive and it spits out about 40 mini attack submarines with Heavy Duty leading the charge. The Cobra defenses are massive and McCullen is using the three remaining nanotechnoligical weapons to destroy three cities. Cobra has put them in ICBM's which he has. I guess no one in the world ever noticed this occuring. Moscow, Shenghai, and Washington DC are the targets. Fortunately, Ripcord knows how to fly just about anything and Cobra has a few supersonic planes which seem to fly about Mach 10 just sitting around. Ripcord hops into one which were only guarded by two guards which were shot down by Scarlett on a raging jet ski from about a mile out. Laughable.

Ripcord destroys the Shenghai ICBM with a missile from the jet ski. That was some quick thinking. Why he is the only one to think of this, oh well. He chases down two of ICBM's in this Cobra supersonic plane and eliminates them. That is pretty cool, the way that was done.

The movie was action packed. I have to give it that. Even when explaining characters, it was interesting. Unlike Hulk II from last year which was just disappointing. That was even worse than Terminator Salvation.

GI Joe took some losses but saved three cities and millions of lives. But Zartan, with Dr. Mindbender's evil wizardry, assassinates the President while he is down in his bunker and using nanotechnology, his body becomes identical to him. Zartan was posing just like a Secret Serviceman and kills two of them while he turns into the President. Dr. Mindbender and Destro both have metal faces now, I can not explain everything, and are captured. It is said that GI Joe have two knew bases to base their planet saving operations from. This movie never made me laugh despite Marlon's attempts. It was not boring though. The casting for the females was well done. Miller never seemed to be that plush, she was not skinny in this movie.

I give this movie two stars.**