Going into its second week of release G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra is making mega bucks at the box office. The movie is a live action version of the famed Hasbro cartoon G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero. In this adaptation they give us the origin of some of the more popular members of the Joe team along with showing us how their arch enemies Cobra came to be. In this story the Joe team is already a secret group of international operatives who are sent in to do the jobs that the regular military can’t handle. Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are top notch military personnel who have a mission to deliver a new weapon technology designed by a famed weapons manufacturer named McCullen (Christopher Eccleston). When their convoy is attacked, the Joe team comes to the rescue. General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) sees potential in the two and trains them to become members of the elite group. I’ll stop there because I don’t want to give away too much info about the movie.
Now as you may have realized in recent years, old TV shows and cartoons made into live action movie is the big thing in Hollywood right now. With the success of Transformers also by Hasbro, Hollywood is once again turning to another genre for movie ideas. First it was the wave of comic book hero movies, now it’s going to be a wave of old classic cartoons that they use to pull audiences. I have to say I was skeptical about them doing G.I.Joe, but I’m happy to say they did a decent job in turning this into what should be a flourishing franchise. The action was nonstop. The actors picked to play the characters were good choices in my opinion, and seemed to have a good chemistry together. The scene with the accelerator suits was jaw dropping. It was by far the best scene in the movie, but the rest of the action was great too. The gadgets and secret hideouts of both the Joe team and Cobra would have any James Bond fan slobbering. I see this franchise only getting better with each sequel. I give it 2 ¾ “Yo Joe’s! out of 4. It did have some cheesy lines thrown in the script, but hey it is from a cartoon. The movie ran 1 hour and 58mins. It was rated PG-13 for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout. It was written by Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett. It was directed by Stephen Sommers. It was produced by Sommers Company, Di Bonaventura Pictures, Inc., Hasbro, Inc. It was distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Reviewed by Eric Williams
When Cobra raises its evil head, G.I.Joe will be there to fend it off! GO JOE!!!!!
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