Then I discovered the cartoons! Between the Joes and the Transformers, I spent an uninterrupted hour in front of the television every weekday for years!
This was an obsession that was unlike any other for me which only worsened with the discovery of the comic book! The story lines were excellent and the colors were vibrant! I can still recall Baroness shooting a drenched and exhausted Storm Shadow on the beach of Cobra Island from the back of a H.I.S.S. tank!
I could chronicle crucial steps of my evolution with the Joe mythos until YOU are blue in the face but we can fast forward to the release of either the greatest or worst adaptation into film comics has ever seen with this new film, G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra.
I want desperately to give this movie high ratings but honestly cannot blindly and emotionally pump it up. I knew it would be a tough thing to do, transitioning either the comic or the cartoon mythos to the silver screen and I was completely ready to forgive the "story rewrites" that Hollywood often commits to make the movie "more accessible"...especially with a movie based on action figures. (I am still frustrated with the Transformers franchise.)
I will start off with a couple reasons I don't feel the movie worked so well, but I must warn you...though I don't plan to offer specifics, I might SPOIL some of this film for you. Skip this paragraph if you want to remain totally surprised: There was too much incestuous feeling in the relationships; it seemed that every one was related to every one else in some way. Duke was a hard but charismatic character for 25 years and in this movie, he is reduced to tough guy #52. Some of the relationships were far too forced (beyond everyone having shared history together). G.I. Joe had great soap opera type relationships that worked, why dump all of that out the window for the choices they did make? Snake-Eyes had pretty pronounced lips on his rubber suit which made him look...odd. Without going on much further, the movie ran along strongly until the ending which seemed to get cut short! Like, ran out of funding short.
I don't want to leave a bitter taste in anyone's brain so I will mention some of the great things about this new franchise: the minor details were astounding! The vehicles had small (for lack of a better word) decals on them which were very reminiscent of the toys. Destro was a sneaky bastich (and the opening scene of the Destro family history was awesome)! The action was high and the 'flashback' stories were not burdening. Fight scenes were great, both man-to-man and vehicle-to-vehicle! Scarlett and Baroness were both smoking like a freshly emptied 50-cal! Finally, the plot was a little over the top (like the cartoons) but they seldom went into the realm of blatantly outlandish (see the early 90s Fantastic Four movie or the 1960s Batman movie).
I would easily rate this movie 4 out of 4 colors, however; with the downfalls and contrived nonsense, this action flick sinks like a ship at Pearl Harbor to 1.8! Better luck with the sequel Mr. Sommers.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tk7v89fxpGvwvzAHasCgVz8yoPqlIXM_imBacfUl4NIW0hyc0NN-ZAblLl23Z9Uh7Lkp-IyKsoNUB3LOcEEwoac4Mg_nb8ANyBoT3sJAoGERg_EQq-IuvcbK4lbPTM6iz6mTTuz9uRDZLPOYckU0Wl=s0-d)
