G.I. Joe – The Rise of Cobra
Sometimes I ask myself what my life is all about. Why I do what I do. Why I sit around in my free time and watch these awful movies. And sometimes, like after watching today's installment, G.I. Joe - The Rise of Cobra, I can't come up with any good answers.
I LIKE FRUIT CUPS DUUUUUHHH...
This is a film of determined and unrelenting stupidity. Coming from Stephen Sommers, who started out okay with The Mummy, got kinda 'meh' with The Mummy Returns, and dove headlong into worse-than-Uwe-Boll territory with the execrable, inexcusable Van Helsing, G.I. Joe manages — unbelievably — to be his worst film yet. Because the script was written by idiots.
So many questions. The general in charge of the Joes (Dennis Quaid, for some reason) knows "all about" Duke, but he didn't know that Duke was engaged to The Baroness (nee Anna DeCobray, cute) a mere four years previous... during the time when he, the general, was actively trying to recruit Duke, no less. Why? Because the script was written by idiots.
Christopher Eccleston, as our baddie, is an arms dealer. He has spent "billions of Euro and ten years" building four — count 'em, four — nanotech warheads for NATO, but he decides to steal them back surreptitiously. Indeed, this is what passes for plot here. Why he just doesn't make a couple more (after all, he owns the friggin' factory and all the parts and shit) is a question not only not answered, it remains unasked. Because the script was written by idiots.
The Baroness has to take over a particle accelerator in Paris to "weaponize" the stolen warheads. This makes no sense whatsoever, so WTF. Because the script was written by idiots.
Each warhead has an individual kill switch that renders it ineffective. One, and one switch only per warhead. You'd think someone would have ordered a couple of backup kill switches, but no. Because the script was written by idiots.
Scarlett mentions some fucking dribble so inane that I can't quite remember it clearly, but it had something to do with "emotions not being real scientifically" and that "they (emotions) can't be quantified" and therefore "they don't exist for me" or some such bollocks. This is supposed to be her character note, BTW. Because she graduated from college at the age of twelve and is some kind of genius, the scriptwriters though this was the sort of thing really smart people would say. Because the script was written by idiots.
Oh, there's lots of other things wrong with this movie, right down to the shite soundtrack and the clearly sub-par CGI, but mostly, it's the stupidity of the whole affair than proves most enervating. I actually found myself longing for a Michael Bay film during this. Maybe not one of the Transformers movies, but I dunno, The Island maybe. Just not this. Never again.