G.I.Joe Review

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra
Directed by: Stephen Sommers(The Mummy 1&2)

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra was suppose to be a thrill ride of excitement filled of action and set the stage for a few sequels to pop out after. But all we received was tons of CGJ action, stiff acting performances and as generic as generic can be in an action script just with G.I. Joe Character names. Well at least we received the years funniest comedy.

G.I. Joe opens in France 1694 which made me confused and wondering "Am I screening the right Film?" We see a Scottish man being held accountable for a crime of double dealing in selling arms, and the French with horrible accents are making him pay for his trickery, by wielding a metal mask on his face that he must wear for the rest of his life. Then the movie flashes forward with the words "IN THE NOT SO DISTANT FUTURE" making me think "Wait not so distant future from France 1694 or our current time so lost, oh wait cool buildings and taxi's must be NOT SO DISTANT FUTURE for our time." Already this opening scene of "here is some cool back story" has failed miserably and just makes you feel confused.
In this NOT SO DISTANT FUTURE, leading arms maker James McCullen (cough cough) played by Christopher Eccleston has made a new weapon "nanotechnology" which when deployed could take down a whole city by eating metal and as far as I could tell anything it touches. He sells these war heads to NATO, "why they want them I have no clue?" But this is where we meet Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripchord (Marlon Waynes).
As these two combat ready soldiers take the war heads to NATO they are attacked by the Baroness (Sienna Miller) and a fight scene takes place with hummers blowing up and the Baroness side taking names over Duke and Ripchord due to their advanced weaponry (cough cough). Finally this other unnamed group shows up to save Duke and Ripchord leading us to find out there is a secert team made up of the best of the best soldiers from all countries G.I. Joes.
When then finally get to meet Hawk (Dennis Quaid) which I was hoping would start some spark in the mediocre acting at best, but well it just made it worse. With Quaid adding a stiff, stiff performance making the scenes almost comically, especially the scene where Quaid forcefully threw in the motto of "Knowing is half the battle".
The Rise of the Cobra continues to drag on for 2 hours and 10 miens, the whole time you find yourself laughing at the ridged dialog, shotty special effects, and OVER THE TOP GENERIC PLOT TWIST;which all can be solved with in the first 20 minutes.
The acting throughout The Rise of the Cobra is pitiful and you find yourself laughing at the most serious of scenes. Channing Tatum who plays Duke, at times sounds like he is reading off cue cards most the movie adding forced emotion an weird timing on his delivery of lines. Everytime Christopher Eccleston (James McCullen/Destro) speaks you find yourself laughing at the over the top accent he places on the character. Ultimately the best acting is done by Snake Eyes (Ray Park) who doesn't even have one line through the movie because of his vow of silence which is some what horribly told in his "back story".
The Rise of the Cobra "ATTEMPTS" at making its characters have heart felt emotional back stories leading to who they are today, but these flash backs that flaunt themselves throughout the movie make you laugh at how poorly and generically written these back stories are. Even the two main ones Duke and Snake eyes make you laugh, Duke and his stiff acting makes it a comedy scene because I'm thinking Channing Tatum is the Tin Man he has no heart, and throughout Snake Eyes back story your thinking "OMG THAT'S THE KID FROM TROPIC THUNDER"making you replace the horrible lines he is saying with the great ones from Tropic Thunder.
On the plus side G.I. Joe had plenty of action, some nice violence, things that go BOOM, beautiful ladies in leather, and advanced weapons OH and cameo by Brendan Fraser.
But when the 1980's cartoon show has better voice acting then these actors portrayed in this live action rendition someone or some department made a big opps I just hope if they continue on with the next two sequels they bring in new life to the project, that might know something about good fantasy action films. Because Knowing is Half the Battle.