Have you seen this movie before? Let’s see… Bad guys with evil plans to destroy the world with some super weapon, good guys trying to prevent it with incredibly fancy weapons and suits that defy the laws of physics. Pathetic excuses passing as loves stories to fill a nearly nonexistent plot line, ridiculously cheesy dialogue that make you cringe, one-liner that are supposed to be funny but aren’t? What about no character development whatsoever, CGI effects on every single frame and a bunch of destruction just for the sake of it? Oh wait! How about a couple attractive actresses being on screen just for the “hot” factor? Did you say Transformers 2? No you are wrong, I’m talking about GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra. I have to say, it’s a miracle the actors did not burst out laughing on every single take but I think they were too busy thinking about what they would do on their day off to realize… Needless to say, expectations were very low before the movie even started but I did like this movie better than Michael Bay’s trisomic step-child.

Yes, yes… The plot holes abounds. The laws of physics apply only when it’s convenient. The bad guys in the suit taking 50 cal bullets in the face and do not even as flinch a bit. Yet, one of the GI Joe gets to kill them with a freaking sword. You get an air-strike on a tiny building with the hero literally 3 ft from the building and of course, he is unscathed. A humvee takes a RPG square in the back and only a little bit of glass shatters. The same humvee then gets hit on the side by a freaking train, and the car goes flying straight… up? The whole weaponizing of the warhead is incredibly retarded. Since when are warheads not weapons already? You hear lines like “Deploy the sharks” or “Kill all the bad guys” or my all-time favorite: “I’m going to get you out of here” (no let’s wait for the ship to blow up…) that could have been screamed by a 4-yr old boy playing with the GI Joe toys. On the plus side, the action scenes are decently entertaining and are pretty much non-stop but unfortunately the CGI effects are somewhat questionable as they look too cartoonish and a little botched at times. Is this all the CGI a $175 million budget can buy? Also, GI Joe at least tries to have a semblance of a story so I guess that’s a plus. In all, this was expected so I can’t even complain too much.

The performances, on the other hand, were amateurish at best and downright atrocious at times. Combine bored third-tier actors with a pathetic screenplay and you get a catastrophe. Dennis Quaid looked like he was reading his lines right off the script. Channing Tatum has the exact same expression the entire movie and some of his scene are cringe-worthy. Marlon Wayans is trying his best to be funny but well, he fails miserably. Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols are in the movie solely to appeal to the male crowd and I guess they did real well in that department but they sure didn’t do anything else noteworthy. Did I mention Rachel Nichols is way hotter than Megan Fox? At least she is a classic beauty, not an overly pimped up bimbo. Because that’s pretty much the only reason I didn’t turn it off half-way through. Now again, I’m not expecting the world here, just some convincing acting that doesn’t break up the mood of the movie but we don’t get even a fraction of that.

Listen. I understand that this movie was based on the kid’s cartoon and one should not expect award-worthy direction, acting, or anything else for this type of movie. I am totally aware of that. Nevertheless, it is POSSIBLE and EXPECTED to make a good summer blockbuster movie that is a good movie experience across the board as long as it is made with care and competency. We get neither here in this movie or Transformers 2 for that matter. The directors are just hacking away with a minimal plot line, expecting us to gob whatever they throw at us, botching every aspect of the stories, having minimal expectation for their lazy actors and thinking fancy CGI is enough to satisfy the ‘dumb’ crowd. Oh and please stop thinking that your average movie-goer has the intelligence of a 4-yr old and that everything has to be spelled out entirely for us to understand what’s going on.

At the end of the day, GI Joe is a loud, dumb, fluffy summer movie and you know what, it’s fairly fun in an odd sad kind of way! At least it doesn’t take itself as seriously as the horrendous Transformers 2.

C