I thought it was going to suck. I was surprised actually, it's a solid action film. Though the plot sucked, and they blew it in the climax and the ending sucked. The dialogue was awful. So, worth watching for the action.

Don't know the kind of response I'll get to this, but it's the big surprise of the summer, at least for me. Maybe it was my EXTREMELY low expectations.


But I mean if you don't take it seriously and just take it as balls out fun, then you'll like it. 6/10 for me. However, it honestly deserves a 5 or under...

Meh. It's based on a toyline and a cartoon. I'm not expecting anything mind-blowing. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm sure it'll keep me entertained but I'm really not in the mood for yet another brainless action flick this whole year (Transformers 2 was more than enough for me).

--Julio

As seen with He-man in the past... When you try to focus on a few select characters of a bigger picture... It deludes the experience 10 fold.

Movies that tried to use select characters of a specific universe end up being piss poor pieces of goat piss.

Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and DOA... come to mind. They tried to pick out a few characters and focus on them and not build any of the others up. GI-JOE, to me, is more than Duke and Scarlet... It was a universe full of characters and persona's that all had their own story lines. Story lines that cross paths and inter mix with one another.

Story lines that only a series of cartoons or comic books can capture. You simply cannot maintain the universe of a GI-JOE, HE-man, Tekken, Street Fighter, Motral Kombat and so forth and so on in a 90 min movie... You just can't do it.

This is why GI-JOE failed... and why any and all movies that have big scope groups of characters will fail.  X-men is another piece of shit franchise that was riddled with idiocy.

ThunderKats, He-man, Voltron... All of them will be made or remade soon and all will suck badly.

Damn ! And I thought *I* was a pessimist.

--Julio

G.I. Joke  

A 117 minute toy commercial.

RIP-OFF of Star Wars at the end.  No attempt to hide it.  George Lucas should sue these guys.

Was the action good, for the most part, yes.

Thumbs up too Sienna Miller.  She was so hot!!! That tight catsuit, stilettos.  She's the only reason I'd waste eight bucks again to go see it.

Ghostwriter 22

I loved it. So far it's the biggest surprise of the summer. People just need to set their expectations accordingly. It's based off a toyline. This isn't art. The Coen brothers did not direct this, I checked. The film is intended to be cheesy fun. And that's exactly what it is.

~Zack~

Thank you.Tthat's what I wanted to say. Not all film is supposed to be taken seriously.

Quoted from Baltis. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and DOA... come to mind. They tried to pick out a few characters and focus on them and not build any of the others up. GI-JOE, to me, is more than Duke and Scarlet... It was a universe full of characters and persona's that all had their own story lines. Story lines that cross paths and inter mix with one another.

To be fair Street Fighter relied to much on JCVD as an actor and not a average action film star. Mortal Kombat was a mistake and DOA was a chick flick for girls to feel worse about themselves and for guys to use the hand lotion.

This movie was better than those but that's not saying much. It was fun.

The ending was rushed and when Sienna comes back to the good guys it is the thing that these blockbuster movies always do and I'm tired of it. The villains just gave up? What the fuck are you thinking.

The ending with the president was obvious from earlier and sets up a sequel... Wow, I'm so excited for the sequel.  ::) ::)

Quoted from Zack I loved it. So far it's the biggest surprise of the summer. People just need to set their expectations accordingly. It's based off a toyline. This isn't art. The Coen brothers did not direct this, I checked. The film is intended to be cheesy fun. And that's exactly what it is. ~Zack~

Thank you so much for this.


I think some people go into certain movies with the full intention of hating it and trashing it afterwards. Sounds like a boring way to live to me.

The trailers showed what exactly one should expect from this film, so if anyone came into it expecting anything more, it's their own fault if they left disappointed.

Forget the rest of the Joe team, what about Cobra Commander? I can’t believe no one has mentioned Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Casting Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach in “Watchmen” was the one stroke of brilliance in a muddled mess and sure enough, after the movie came out, everyone was talking about Haley’s performance.

Similarly, Gordon-Levitt was a brilliant choice for Cobra Commander. I was hoping everyone would be talking about it. So what’s the deal? Did they ruin his role? Was it poorly written? Why aren’t people talking about Cobra Commander?


Breanne

Quoted from Breanne Mattson Forget the rest of the Joe team, what about Cobra Commander? I can’t believe no one has mentioned Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Casting Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach in “Watchmen” was the one stroke of brilliance in a muddled mess and sure enough, after the movie came out, everyone was talking about Haley’s performance. Similarly, Gordon-Levitt was a brilliant choice for Cobra Commander. I was hoping everyone would be talking about it. So what’s the deal? Did they ruin his role? Was it poorly written? Why aren’t people talking about Cobra Commander? Breanne

I have always liked this guy from Lookout to Brick to 3rd Rock and here.

I'll bite. Gordon-Levitt was pretty cool.

Still, if you make a movie with a mad scientist wearing a monocle and an underwater fortress in Antarctica and still manage to screw it up, something's wrong. I enjoy Stephen Sommers movies and have defended for quite some time. Unfortunately, this was a massive mistep for the guy. People keep saying this was cheesy fun. It didn't come off that way to me at all. If anything, it wasn't cheesy enough. All of the one liners were dull and uninspired. Not even laughably bad. What I ended up laughing at was the actual dialogue ("we need to button you up, Mr. President"). In the end, nothing was pushed as far as it should've been. I think the main problem is that Sommers neglected to write the script himself. Deep Rising and the Mummy flicks were full of stupid one-liners and gags you could feel okay laughing at. Here, not so much. This could've been way better.

Quoted from Yeaster Thank you so much for this. I think some people go into certain movies with the full intention of hating it and trashing it afterwards. Sounds like a boring way to live to me. The trailers showed what exactly one should expect from this film, so if anyone came into it expecting anything more, it's their own fault if they left disappointed.

Do people have any standards at all and not expect any half decent storytelling?

It is a waste of time to go into a movie knowing you will hate it just to talk about it after. I wouldn't have even mentioned this movie if not for the piss poor ending setting up a sequel.

A good example is Drangonball Evolution. I went into that knowing it had two actors and the director I really enjoy in it and left embarrassed that they were in that film. The trailer looked half decent and it looks amazing throughout but the storytelling and acting is so dreadful that it made the entire movie bad.

Quoted Text Do people have any standards at all and not expect any half decent storytelling?

Generally, I do. But when it comes to films like these, getting a decent plot would be a great bonus but I'm not expecting to get one. I just sit and (try) to enjoy the ride.


That said, I found this film to be pretty average and forgettable, and action flick or no, there was no excuse for the craptastic acting coming from what's-his-name, the lead guy.

I enjoyed the film even though I have some problems with it and in a deleted part of my reply I said that "origin" films seem to always suffer from lack of a good plot and story.

That is no excuse since they have years of shows and comics to go by on all of this stuff they adapt but it is a pretty hard thing to get by without giving them some out.

Maybe they were forced to cut out some scenes they will add back to make it better or forced into having two love stories that seem pointless in this type of film or spending an entire film setting up a pilot angle and trying to build suspense as if he dies but you know he gets out and so on and so forth.

I liked the two ninjas and the bond however silly the back story is. He walked into the only place that has a ninja who is the exact same age... what?

Everybody seemed to conveniently know everybody else and she can't tell that's her brother even though I could obvious tell from the eyes that it was.

I went to see it.  I just wanted to see how they would take the comic book and show and turn it into a movie. It was OK IMO.

The storyline was about what we've come to expect for action films.  Not too complicated or anything.  I don't expect as much from an action film as I do a suspense film or a high caliber film.

For me, I think I wanted to see the action sequences and what advances they made with the digital effects.

Speaking of which. what did you all think of the digital effects?

Quoted from BlazingStar The storyline was about what we've come to expect for action films.  Not too complicated or anything.  I don't expect as much from an action film as I do a suspense film or a high caliber film. For me, I think I wanted to see the action sequences and what advances they made with the digital effects. Speaking of which. what did you all think of the digital effects?

You just summed the movie up. Nothing new, nothing special.

The effects are always top notch but we need some substance in order to say that these types of movies are needed.

Some try and others copy the formula that sells tickets opening weekend. For all the grief Hancock gets at least it tried to disrupt the basic formula of this genre.

Even My Super Ex-Girlfriend deserves more credit.

The WORST film of the Summer. Normally I would say "I don't know where to begin..." (when everything is downright awful), but this movie is an exception. For a film that had a $125 million dollar budget, there was no excuse for the CGI to look as bad as it did. There was even crappy CGI effects in scenes which did not need CGI effects to begin with (ie a CGI car was inserted for an overhead shot of a car driving up to a mansion). In all honesty, this movie had the worst CGI I've seen in a very long time. CGI aside, the movie was still cr**. The story was paper thin, the acting was hokey, the direction was mediocre, etc etc. Even the one liners (if you can call them that) were bad.  Don't waste your time renting this film, even if you were an avid GI Joe fan.

The only thing I liked about the movie was the transitions between the above ground ground action to the under water action. That and the fact that I saw it in Japan and I didn't mind a small taste of America.

I didnt think there could be a more noisy and outright dumb film than Transformers 2 this summer until GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra came around.

Quoted from albinopenguin $125 million dollar budget

About the budget, not trying to correct what you said but the budget was $175 M, so that's a waste for that much money

Quoted from albinopenguin For a film that had a $125 million dollar budget, there was no excuse for the CGI to look as bad as it did. There was even crappy CGI effects in scenes which did not need CGI effects to begin with (ie a CGI car was inserted for an overhead shot of a car driving up to a mansion). In all honesty, this movie had the worst CGI I've seen in a very long time. CGI aside, the movie was still cr**. The only thing I liked about the movie was the transitions between the above ground ground action to the under water action. That and the fact that I saw it in Japan and I didn't mind a small taste of America.

I totally agree.  I just thought that a lot of the digital effects were a little weak.  The underground action and the whole world that they created under the desert and the ice was pretty cool.