In a summer where most blockbuster movies were all glamorously flashy with pretentiously convoluted storylines like Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, G. I. Joe distanced itself slightly from the pack by being honest.
This was an action movie through and through. Audiences going for it expected it to entertain hard with action, and that's exactly what they were getting, if not more.
The Hollywood formula for a movie like G. I. Joe came in a familiar packaging. Throw in a young cast of good looking actors, pump in enough budget to shoot almost the whole movie in CGI, and have explosions every other minute for the sake of grandiose.
The writers (Stuart Beattie, David Elliot and Paul Lovett) took the same direction as Star Trek and made this a semi-origin movie whereby Duke, JPG and Ripcord started off as outsiders and had to earn their ranks into the elite team of the Joes' wrong decision. One of the most unnecessary sequences was the training montage which is ineffective in storytelling; though it did give Brandon Fraser a very distracting cameo.What the movie did right was out of the 118 minutes running time, 100 of them were all about the action; and they were hard hitting and fast paced. Usually the action will take place simultaneously in a few locations so the scenes constantly jumped from one to another.
Credit must go to director Stephen Sommers for the smooth transitions and keeping the excitement on a high throughout the entire movie. His slow motions also came in all the right places, creating highlights such as Snake Eyes' intro. Another impressive feat for Sommers was having the camera very still in an ambitious action movie like this so that the audience could see exactly what's going on. Not many directors have done this lately.
What suffered most though were the characters which were not properly written and not consistent at all with the cartoons' direction. The poor writing may also have contributed to the atrocious acting, apart from those who were fortunate enough to be wearing masks.
Just because the hero always gets the girl in Hollywood, Ripcord and Scarlett were duty-bound to induce some hormonal effects. The script was unconvincing and again inconsistent with the history of the Joes because Snake Eyes and Scarlett was the celebrated couple.
Snake Eyes is by far the coolest character but because of his silence, he couldn’t be effective in a movie. However, every time he was on screen, he was always doing something cool (credit to Ray Park). If only the writers had waited for a Snake Eyes origin movie before delving into his past with Storm Shadow because those two deserved a movie of their own.
But when the intent of a movie was all about big, flashy, uninterrupted action; bringing a cartoon to life for the old-school fans and action junkies; this movie achieved that, and more.
Comparing to the other recent Paramount release, Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, though Bay is the better wizard and though both movies were big and loud, G. I. Joe was not a mess to watch.
The story was as straight forward as it could get; and even with terrible acting, ridiculous dialogue and cheesy one-liners, the unrelentless and mindless action will keep you gasping for air.
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