[SPOILERS] "More enjoyable than Transformers 2"? New Reviews!

[FCEEVIPER]

Squid mask.

 

[Timstuff]

Reading the Chud review has got me really pumped. I can't wait to see this bad boy on the big screen!

 

[Crook]

Well, this has to be one of the biggest turnarounds I've seen for film buzz in a while. Barring Star Trek, literally every other summer film has disappointed to no end despite the immense positive fan buzz surrounding it.

I was rather mum on this film and just hoping for the best. Turns out this may be the dark horse of the year.

 

[Jake Cassidy]

As long as Snake Eyes is awesome (which looks like it) I don't really care about the rest. t:

 

[Nivek]

Visually, Snake eyes doesn't even look all that awesome. He looks like some alien or Guyver suit with that stupid face.

I'm still greatly skeptical about this mess, and AICN and CHUD reviews just say "Hey, look at the sudden surge of money we got to update the site".

I'll wait till more fan reviews come in. You know, people who don't have anything to gain but personal satisfaction with positive reviews.

 

[Ironfan72]

yojoe.com has a very good reveiw, they give it a very positive reveiw with some issues and they are the hardcore fans of GiJoe,

**warning major Spoilers in this guys review**

http://www.yojoe.com/reviews/moviereview.shtml#review

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Its nice to see a movie surrounded by negativity get nice reviews, I have kept quiet on this one as I just didnt know what to think about it, but the trailers looked interesting and I love a good action movie now and then, will be going to see this next week probably.

 

[zeptron]

Yet another positive review

http://www.joblo.com/review-gi-joe

 

[The Guard]

So it's fun, and draws from GI JOE lore, but the movie is not deep or entirely faithful. That's about what I expected. I just hope the performances hold up, more than anything else.

 

[Symbiotic]

I hope all of these positive reviews are legit and not just positive because of $. I want this movie to genuinely rock.

 

[Timstuff]

There's too many positive reviews at too many high profile sites for them all to be plants. Also, if Hasbro is rolling out the dollars for reviews for this movie, why didn't they for Transformers 2?

 

[terry78]

They bribed them with action figures.

 

[FCEEVIPER]

iesb.net

Movie Review: G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA
Written by Robert Sanchez Friday, 31 July 2009

Spoiler

I have very fond memories of my childhood, thanks to my active imagination, my bedroom transformed into Eternia, Tatooine, Cybertron, Arus, Doom or The Pit depending on the day.

Yes, Star Wars, Transformers, He-Man, Voltron and G.I. Joe made me the man I am today, a fanboy.

In the last 10 years, we've seen some really cool fanboy projects brought to life from a comic book page, action figure or a video game to the big screen. In the last three years alone, Transformers was brought to the big screen in a way no one would've ever imagined just a decade ago.

As a kid who grew up in the '80s, I've looked forward to seeing some - and by some I mean not all, like I don't want to see Thundarr the Barbarian on the big screen, well, maybe I would, it would depend - of my childhood cartoons translated to the big screen and G.I. Joe was definitely one of them.

Yesterday the folks over at Paramount arranged for me and my girls to watch Stephen Sommer's big screen adaptation of G.I. Joe on the Paramount lot, and boy was I excited!

Before they started shooting the film, I read three screenplays including Stuart Beattie's draft which ended up being used and his was not my favorite, at that point, I preferred Skip Woods' take on G.I. Joe that came previously. It was very Jason Bourne.

I felt that Stuart Beattie's version was too cartoony and not for the 30+ year olds who grew up with the franchise, but nonetheless, I was still very excited to see the film.

The movie starts in 1641 laying down the foundation of McCullen clan, a family that's in the weapons trade. An ancestor of Christopher Eccleston's McCullen, James McCullen, is caught selling arms to both his King and to his opponent and is shunned for life and made an example by being forced to wear a metal mask (think Man in the Iron Mask look) for the rest of his life.

Something I caught onto, which I hadn't previously, is that David Murray who was originally cast as McCullen/Destro but was unable to take the role due to some Visa issues, plays the McCullen ancestor, so he got to be a McCullen afterall.

Cut to the "not too distant future" and we meet Duke, Ripcord and the Joe team battling it out against an as-of-yet unknown force and the action ensues!

Did I like it? Yes, hell yes!

The movie is exactly what it needed to be. A non-stop fun action film for the 12-year old in all of us. The movie captured the essence of the original cartoon just as well as the first Transformers film did.

Bottom line it worked great. The cast looked great, the costumes looked good on screen, the weapons were awesome and the story moved along pretty smoothly without any major plot holes. There were enough references and cameos to keep die hard G.I. Joe fans happy. But if this film is your first encounter with the Joes, no worries, it did a great job introducing the core team to newbies.

I can use three of my daughters that came to the screening as an example. They are aged 5, 7 and 14 and have never seen a single episode of the G.I. Joe cartoon (my bad) and they were glued to the screen. They absolutely loved it. Even my 14 year-old who doesn't think anything I like is cool said, and I quote, "That was badass!"

Ray Park as Snake Eyes was my favorite part of the movie. I swear I am going to get an Arashikage tattoo on my arm, he is so awesome.

G.I. Joe is exactly what this summer needed after all of the disappointments thus far. It's easily the best action film of the year.

Some of the our readers chimed in early on regarding Marlon Wayans as Ripcord. Yes, I too cringed when that announcement was made. But guess what? He was great, his humor wasn't over the top as it usually is plus he has one of the best lines of the film involving the famous G.I. Joe kung fu grip!

The casting worked 100% including Joseph Gordon Levitt and Sienna Miller who, based on early feedback, were the characters fans were most worried about.

I am glad the filmmakers took this path over the darker version of that earlier Skip Woods draft. Even though I liked it, kids, who are the main target demographic for this film, would have not been able to grasp the story.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty elements that adults will like. The eye candy was great. For the ladies you have Channing Tatum and the rest of the boys looking like well built action figures and for us guys you've got Sienna and Rachel looking extremely hot in their tight black outfits.

So with that said, you must go see G.I. Joe. For the fanboys who have been waiting over 20 years for this film to the new recruits who've never heard of G.I. Joe, come August 7, this film delivers what every summer blockbuster should have, 110% action and 110% fun.

Now you know...and knowing...is half the battle...

Yo Joe!

G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA opens in theaters August 7

 

[FCEEVIPER]

Aint It Cool's Merrick's COBRA Rises For G.I. JOE!!

Merrick here...

Spoiler

I usually don't review much here on AICN; there are plenty of people around who review regularly and I don't wish to be redundant.

This said, I'm unable to keep my mouth shut about G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA - primarily because I've spent the last year and a half kicking the film, knocking Stephen Sommers (whose VAN HELSING I still regard as one of the most overwrought, self-indulgent pieces of pap to hit screens in many years), and negatively prejudging the capabilities of nearly everyone involved with this project.

I was wrong. I'm here to say it, and I'm happy to admit it. I was wrong.

G.I. JOE is big, OTT, intellectually challenged, and idiotic as they come - which could certainly describe nearly ever other Stephen Sommers film to date. But it's also a helluva lot more fun than they are, and here's why...

Previous Sommers movies possess a smug quality; Sommers and those around him seemed to feel they were being far more clever than they actually were, which usually resulted in no small amount of groan inducing tedium. JOE doesn't fall into this trap: there are no winks and nudges here, and the success of the movie hinges on a very simple, very truthful conceit:

Sommers and his cohorts have taken all the imaginings we've ever enjoyed while playing with toys and action figures in a sandbox (or wherever) and fully visualized them using JOE's titanic budget. There are things in this movie we've never seen on screen before - but they all feel agreeably familiar, and sometimes they're even comforting. Because many of us have probably imagined what he's showing us at some point in our childhoods, but never dared to think we'd actually see such things realized.

Explosions are oversized and multitudinous - things don't just go boom, they go BOOOOOOOMMMMMM! After all, why would a mere 'Boom' suffice when you can make a bigger explosion of sand, or throw more cars into the air, using two hands? People defy gravity because their "Accelerator Suits" suits let them; allowing them to climb walls, toss around vehicles, survive impossible falls, etc. There are machine guns, laser beams, cloaking screens, and...in a frenzied delirium of ADD conceptualization...a running firefight which turns into a ninja battle before morphing into an old-fashinoed hot ***** smack-down in the span of roughly five minutes.

It's madness, but it's never self-indulgent. There's an overwhelming sense here that Sommers and his minions were carried back to their own childhoods while making this movie, and are fiercely determined to re-create that experience for anyone watching it. In many regards, JOE succeeds where Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS films failed; Sommers has successfully achieved what Bay did not: he avoids fetishistic obsession with persons and objects, instead forging an (admittedly superficial) emotional connection with his viewer. TRANSFORMERS is (supposedly) about what looks cool. JOE is cool because it's built around the reckless, carefree exhilaration we used to feel when we smashed planes into the ground, or collided two action figures in mid air, or had submarines chaseour favorite hero in a bathtub. In short: it's cool because we've known such things were cool all along. Giant robots are hard to connect with in the Bayverse. JOE...feels approachable.

This isn't to suggest JOE as any emotional depth whatsoever. Quite the contrary: characterization is almost non existent in this film; the actors here all look like (and are presented as) action figures. Even much of their dialogue sounds it's being filtered through an underpowered voice chip in the back of some 12" deluxe figure. They are iconic, and archetypal, at best.

How thin is the characterization here? There's a voice controlled super plane in the movie (which looks a lot like the plane Clint Eastwood flew in FIREFOX). Our heros can't get that plane to work and they can't figure out why. Someone realizes the plane was built by someone who spoke more languages than English. They find a particular language in which the plane may've been programmed and, PRESTO! The plane responds! That's the extent of characterization in this film. That plane has more nuance than any single person around it. And that's they way it should be - so say he rules of the sandbox.

In a very real sense, THE RISE OF COBRA is less an adaptation of G.I. JOE than a celebration of any number of toys we played with when we were kids - of the places they took us, and the adventures we had along the way. G.I. JOE, as a concept and title, just happens to be the mechanism to propel audiences back to these places.

I didn't think I missed my sandbox all that much. Now I realize I kind of do...

...a lot.

 

[zeptron]

Anyone else notice that since all the positive reviews have started pouring in none of the naysayers have been posting here?

 

[Kargo Warrior]

Another positive:

''With its often subtle tongue-in-cheek humor, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is pure escapist fun, put together in an exhilarating way whose simple message is: Have fun and do not take this seriously. It’s adrenalin charged, exciting and entertaining way to spend two hours in a movie theatre, and gthis could easily emerge as the biggest surprise and sleeper hit of the summer.''


http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/14786/paul-s-review-g-i-joe-rise-of-cobra-

 

[BLACK-SPIDEY]

i might see this after all.

 

[FCEEVIPER]

Anyone else notice that since all the positive reviews have started pouring in none of the naysayers have been posting here?

Ha! That's true. t:



So with all these positive reviews you know what that means.......Gi Joe will not make lots of money in the BO.

 

[SuperBatman]

Ugh I don't care if the non sayers don't go see it. It looks like it will be a fun movie to watch and hopefully it makes enough money to do a sequel.

 

[roach]

i read the positive review at AICN and my only question is why bash Transformers in the review for Gi Joe???

 

[Bunker]

i read the positive review at AICN and my only question is why bash Transformers in the review for Gi Joe???

Both are action-oriented summer blockbusters geared towards the younger audience. I guess he was pointing out that this doesn't suck like ROTFL.

 

[roach]

yeah but did they really need to go on and on bashing the movie???

 

[rogue trooper]

Wow!! I guess there's now two end-of-summer films to look foreward to(the other being District 9). It's quite refreshing to know that this film might not be bad after all.

 

[roach]

im mad as hell...they are previewing the movie on base today and I have duty

 

[Nivek]

I hope all of these positive reviews are legit and not just positive because of $. I want this movie to genuinely rock.

I'm not above seeing this eventually, and it would be nice to think it's not a huge pile of crap that Sony gave guaranteed exclusives and promotional funds to websites in exchange for positive reviews. But I'm not reading any "you gotta see this because" moments in these positive reviews. They all seem to pretty much be telling people "If you loved the stupid 80's cartoon, you will like this. If your a 'fanboy' who look for details, you'll be disappointed".

Oh well, I'll wait to hear what some of you think.