G.I Joke...

G.I.Joe : The Rise of The Cobra - 2009

Well after missing this at the cinema, I was actually looking forward to seeing this on Bluray - from the trailer the film looks like an immense action film - which to a certain extent it is, however what goes along with the action isn't exactly brilliant.

Before I started watching this, a friend told me to stay away from it and not bother wasting my time, but I thought I'd give it a chance. From the off set I was still pretty open minded, and besides, Sienna Miller is in it and she's pretty fit, so in my eyes it was worth a watch.

In all fairness is wasn't as terrible as my friend made out, it was worth the watch - but only because there was nothing else on. The action sequences are pretty good, and it all looks pretty in HD, however it has to be said that the bulk of the acting is awful, especially from Marlon Wayans (who I can't really stand anyway), some of the concepts are ridiculously far fetched (more of that in a sec) and the script is pretty awful too. Stick all that in a film with a couple of totally expected twists and you've got yourself a film which just passes the time.

So onto these crazy ideas. Now I'm certainly one to have an open mind to sometimes ridiculous concepts, if all films stuck to reality and didn't exaggerate the truth somewhat, we'd be presented with fairly bland films, however this film really pushes it. I accept the super suits which make humans super strong and fast because I kinda feel I have to - what I don't buy is our two main characters (Ripcord played by the annoying Marlon Wayans and Hauser played by Channing Tatum) who accidentally get involved in the G.I Joe's agency - then being the only two people who use the suiots in the film - despite being the least experienced. All we get is a cliche montage seeing them train, and when the world is at stake I don't buy that the secret agency would put the world in the hands of these two - especially Ripcord who can barely walk in the super suit.

There's also another part which actually made me swear out loud at how ridiculous it was, and this was after accepting a suit which made you invisible - (the concept being minicameras and screens all over the suit - much like the bond car in Die another Day) at least there was a logic to the idea. But at one point the scientist pokes two rods into a dead mans head and the scene plays out like this;

The team approach the dead soldier

Ripcord: Hey, what are you doing?
Breaker: Plugging into his Cerebral Cortex.
Ripcord: I hate to break the news to you but I don't think he's going to give you much in his dead condition.

Breaker sticks to probes in the temples of the dead soldier (wait for it....)

Breaker: The brain survives a couple of minutes after death.
Scarlett: We can retrieve the electrical impulses from from his most recent memories and convert them to images.

Shortly after this we see the team watching a small screen with what the dead guys last few memories were - thus finding the baddy's base.
So by sticking some prods into this dead guys head you can see the last few things he saw...brilliant! Of course you can... Totally ridiculous! They can do that but they can't track a van without one of their team strapped to the roof of it - I don't understand. That was one step too far for me. I continued watching the film laughing at most of the "science" through the rest of the film. Thankfully though, we're left with the sense that there's going to be a sequel. Great. I can't wait - I really doubt there will be though.

Ok - so  there we have it - this film is poorly acted and poorly written with some ridiculous concepts, but in a sense it did entertain me throughout. There are some amusing parts and the action sequences are really good, the film does have a bit of a fun feeling throughout. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone but if it's on or you can't think of anything else to watch, let it play out. It's stupid but mildly entertaining - if you can forgive its ridiculousness then fair enough - I stuck it out, I wasn't particularly impressed, I found myself shaking my head throughout - but I didn't totally hate it either. 5 out of 10.

Russ