Why G.I. Joe Will Suck And Small Bits Of Hope That I’m Wrong

Let me set the record straight right off the bat. I am not a G.I. Joe hater at all. I am hoping this movie rocks. If this were a sporting event, and the G.I. Joe movie was about to take the field, I’d be in the stands wearing my G.I. Joe Jersey, waving my G.I. Joe flag and cheering them on at the top of my lungs.

Then again, us Toronto Maple Leafs fans do that all the time… but the team still sucks. And no matter how much I hope, how much I cheer, G.I. Joe will (in my opinion) suck a great and powerful suck of epic proportions. And dear heavens I hope I’m wrong… but I don’t think I am.

So why have I come to the belief that this movie is destined to let us all down? There are a few very important ones that I’ll lay out here:

#1) IT’S GOING TO TARGET KIDS
When we first heard that there was going to be a G.I. Joe movie, a lot of guys my age who grew up with the cartoon and the toys and this bad ass grand vision in our heads of a great and violent G.I. Joe flick. I mean after all… Transformers had great action and violence in it right?

Well yes… but… talk to any studio person and they’ll tell you, the ratings people look at a robot getting it’s head ripped off a LOT differently than they look at a human being getting their head ripped off. We can see Jazz getting torn in half by Megatron no problem… but if it was Shia LaBeouf Megatron was tearing apart it would have been slapped with a hard “R” faster than Michael Richards career disappeared… and the toy company would not let that happen.

So for us adult fans of G.I. Joe, we are doomed to get a very soft version, because the toy company won’t accept anything less. This movie is being made to sell toys, and to do that, it’s gotta be kid friendly, which I believe will leave many of us unsatisfied.

#2) THE DIRECTOR
When they announced that Stephen Sommers was directing G.I. Joe my eyes rolled back in my head like I was the Undertaker. Yes, I sort of dig the first “The Mummy” movie… but this is the same guy who gave us the second Mummy movie (ouch), and the guy who did that horrible live action “The Jungle Book” movie back in the 90’s… but worst of all he’s the one responsible for that absolute crapfest of a movie known as “Van Helsing”. I hope I’m wrong, but I simply do not trust this guy to deliver the goods. I could write posts everyday for the next year about how bad Van Helsing is. How on earth they decided to entrust G.I. Joe to this man is completely beyond me.

#3) THE CAST
Even though I didn’t think “Fighting” looked very good, I went to see it the other week with a real curiosity because the G.I. Joe star, Channing Tatum, was also the star of Fighting and I wanted to see what we could expect from him. Folks, he’s terrible. At least he was terrible in Fighting. I’m not going to paint the dude with a broad brush and say he’ll never have a career or be any good. Maybe he’ll win an Oscar someday… but in Fighting he was just dreadful. No, it’s not just that the movie was bad… HE was bad. And this guy is supposed to be Duke?!?!?!

Will someone please explain to me what the fuck a Wayans brother is doing in this movie? Marlon Wayans?!?!? Really?!?!?! Maybe it was his ground breaking performance in Dungeons & Dragons (please note sarcasm). Maybe it was his oscar worthy role in Little Man (please note Sarcasm). Perhaps it was his breathtaking portrayal in White Chicks (please note sarcasm). Oh yeah, we was ok in Requiem for a Dream… ALMOST 10 YEARS AGO.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander?!?! Are you shitting me? Don’t get me wrong, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a solid performer… but casting him as Cobra Commander just baffles my mind.

So there you have it. The fact that this movie has to be kid friendly, a bad choice in directors and a horrible cast unfortunately convince me that G.I. Joe is going to rot like last week’s cheese. Once again, I really hope I’m wrong… I’m going to be there opening day… I’ll be cheering for it… but I just think it’s going to let us all down.

HOWEVER…

There are a couple of little things that may be enough to give us G.I. Joe fans the slightest glimmer of hope that the movie may not be bad. Hang on dearly to these things:

1) Even though Summers is the WRONG guy to direct this… and that he’s done some horrible work in the past… the first Mummy movie was pretty good. So maybe… just maybe.

2) It’s a bad cast, but it does at least have the amazing Dennis Quaid. Quaid seems to have the ability to elevate the work of those around him. Having him as General Hawk was the only good pre-production decision I think they made about this film.

3) Trailers mean nothing… the Phantom Menace is the greatest trailer in history and look how bad that movie turned out. Still, the trailers for G.I. Joe (one is just posted below) haven’t been bad. I’ve actually liked them.

4) Ray Park and Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow
Their going to have the ninjas in the movie. Good move. They got Ray Park (Darth Maul) to play Snake Eyes… also a good move.

None of these are enough to change my mind personally that G.I. Joe will suck… but they give us some hope to hang on to. And we need all the hope we can get.

Guess now we just need to wait and see how it turns out.

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29 thoughts on “Why G.I. Joe Will Suck And Small Bits Of Hope That I’m Wrong

  1. I saw a video review of the original Mortal Kombat movie recently on a video game site. They go back once a week and compare a movie against the game that inspired it.
    Anyhow, in the review, the guy mentions that MK isn’t by any means great cinema, but it works because a) They kept close to the original source material that people fell in love with, and b) the movie didn’t take itself too seriously.
    I’m really hoping for the same thing here from GI Joe. I don’t know that I care about Cobra commander not wearing a mask.
    What I want is him to lead a huge force of people willing to carry out ridiculous plans to take over the world. If that involves holding the world hostage by threatening to shoot missiles at the worlds great landmarks and dissolve them, that sounds like a Cobra plan to me.
    And I want some stupid henchmen, and double-crossing, opportunistic bad guys. And. I want the whole crazy plan to fall apart in the last five minutes

  2. I agree – Channing Tatum does suck! I haven’t seen Fighting but I’ve seen him in Step Up and he IS lame!

    “When they announced that Stephen Sommers was directing G.I. Joe my eyes rolled back in my head like I was the Undertaker”
    Haha! That’s funny, I liked that.

  3. I’m dissappointed by what I see offered in the trailers. I wish the Joes were in there uniforms, not mechanical hyper powered suits that make the “Superheros”. I want Cobra Commander and his troops in their cobra “Blues”. I want Destro to always be in the Helmet. I am happy with the Ninja stuff. Good call. And I like the idea of the Joes having to stop the Cobra invasion via “Missle Destructo” weapons. But If you are going to make a movie based on something, like toys. At least use the design of the toys for the movie and don’t re-design everything. Otherwise, I mean… what’s the purpose.

    I hate the “Mechanical Armor Suit” thing. I already saw Iron Man. I own it. I can watch it whenever I want. I have both Transformers and Terminator to watch for Mechanical Robotics this summer. I want the Joes to be Joes Damnit. Not Robotic Suit guys.

    Meh.

    1. Having said what I said. If the movie in the trailers wasn’t named G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra. And was the exact same movie…. Just had nothing to do with the trademark name… I would probably be super excited to watch the action in it alone.

  4. Literally the only thing that is exciting me about the movie is how Sommers said one of his influences was the James Bond films of the 60’s where the villains would live in these hugely elaborate lairs and an army of good guys would come along to blow it up.

    So I am excited to see the big scrap in Destro’s underwater base because we really don’t see that kind of thing anymore (not even from the Bond films).

    Apart from that though….urgh!

  5. With a former Doctor< Joseph Gordon-Levitt and about half a dozen decent actors in it, it should be given a chance i have seen potentially bad move be semi-decent because of a great cast

  6. Ummm…how about it’s going to suck because it’s based on the silliest, dumbest, most ridiculous premise ever?
    It really starts and ends there. I had trouble suspending disbelief for this campy crap even as a kid.
    Yo Joe! Please…

    Anyone who goes to this movie is going to get exactly what they deserve.

    If they’re going to bring an after school cartoon to life…somebody make a Starblazers movie!

  7. The reason I have hope for this movie is kinda like the current stock market – the bar is set SO LOW that if it even partly delivers a fun experience, it will be a pleasant surprise.

    Like John, I can’t see any acting appeal in Channing Tatum. Everything I’ve seen of him is completely flat. I find it hard to believe people were nominating him for Captain America.

  8. All I can say is that Sgt Slaughter and Former Chicago Bear William “The Fridge” Perry better show up. to be real life living GI Joes is a great honor and they definitely deserve cameos in the movie.

    the movie will suck if they aren’t in it.

    1. gpd those where good times….only problem i had was gi joe came on right after my little fucking powny…..had to watch it before cause sister loved that shit…after joe it wa time to ride the big yellow limo to elementary school.

  9. John , the way i figure it. You’re going to hate the movie opening day or not , because you’re going into it thinking it’s going to suck.

    1. Not true. I went to Wolverine fully expecting it was going to suck based on what I’d see (the trailers DID NOT impress me at all) and what I had heard (lots of bad reviews, studio spin that sounded like they knew it sucked). Turns out I loved it, and probably like it a bit more than I would have if I’d gone in with high hopes.

      I agree with everything John’s said too. And like John, I really do want to like this movie. I think there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical, but with this film I’m leaning more towards the optimistic side of the fence.

  10. get over urself and just watch the damn movie instead of saying how much it will suck everytime they post about this movie. I liked the phantom meance and so did a billion dollars worth of people. So STFU and just wait. IF it sucks then you can say it sucks till they get over yourself

  11. Meh the trailers look horrible. Simply put neither this nor transformers look all that good. They are movies based on toys for godsake. Ofcourse they will be bag of shit.

    Terminator salvation will be the best Blockbuster big budget action/sci-fi movie of the summer and a little movie called District 9 will be surprise everyone too.

  12. The original cartoon was a kids cartoon based on the at the time recent bastardization of the original war novelty dolls (the boys’ version of Barbie). People seem to forget about the original GI Joes and only remember the cheap toys with the easily breakable jointed arms.

    I can see a good hard PG-13 version of GI Joe, but I think a rated R film might push it a little.

    To me, this new film looks like another pointless action film, where the main character can do almost superhuman things in cheesy slow motion. It looks cartoonish and silly.

    1. I still have my Joes from when I was a kid and I’ve never broken one of their articulated limbs. They are looser now from years of abuse, but I’ve found those action figures to be the most durable toys I’ve ever played with. Especially compared to toys these days. I recently bought an Iron Man figure to use as a model for an art project and the damn arm broke on me.

  13. I agree with everything, yeah I don’t know why he was cast as cobra commander, btw i was it just me or does Joseph Gordon-Levitt freakin look like Heath Ledger? IDK, but I do have one argument to propose. The fact that it’s aimed at kid’s doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll suck, Transformers for some part was aimed at kids and it was awesome. It can’t be too aimed at kids because there’s that moment with the hot girl in there. But I don’t think the aiming at kids thing with GI Joe will be a problem

  14. i dont mind the director b/c i enjoyed both “van helsing” and ” the mummy returns

    i completely agree on part about Tatum and the fact that its gonna be targeted toward kids

    1. There are two things I disagree with and that is Levitt is more than just a solid performer and I think he has the ability to carry a movie even as cobra commander. I also agree that casting a Wayans brother was a mistake, but I think his performance in Requiem for a Dream was better than just OK.

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