Why isn’t Paramount screening GI Joe to nationwide critics?

[Raiden]

Just because G.I.Joe was based on cartoons, comics, and toys doesn't mean they can s**t all over the established backstory and personalities of those characters. But Sommers doesn't give a damn and he screwed up the characters in whatever way he sees fit. Seeing how much disrespect he paid to G.I.Joe is enough to turn me off from seeing it, because I know this isn't the G.I.Joe that I like growing up.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah that's kind of my point Sarge 2.0. Fans on message boards just get into this defensive mode when critics bash a movie they want to see and like critics hate everything.

And then when something Spider-man 2 is one of the highest rated movies of the year, people are like WHOA that's awesome, how is that possible?

 

[xwolverine2]

Seriously, GI Joe CANNOT be that bad.

u shall see

 

[terry78]

It'll be accepted the same as Transformers was. The internet geek/hipster/film buff crowd will either hate it or love it ironically, and the average joe type who like to talk/text during the movie and act like a-holes will come out saying how ****ing awesome it was. I'm gonna go see it twice...once at the local "ghetto" theatre and again at the suburban upper middle class theatre and see what the diff is.

 

[The Guard]

Some critics may have a more evolved sensibility about film. In general, though? Hardly. Not based on what I've seen here, and in the past.

It strikes me as ridiculous to believe with some of these reviews that most of these critics have an inherent higher understanding of film than the average person. There's simply not much there to support that. A broader vocabularly maybe, when they're sitting there with a thesaurus. .

People with a high understanding of film shouldn't just be making broad statements about an entire film and then relying on slanderous jokes and puns in their reviews instead of actually assessing the movie, they should be specific and knowledgeable about a film's strengths and weaknesses, in the context of FILM. They should be comparing this movie to other movies, to the source material, to literature, assessing the various techniques, approaches, etc, and doing so in intelligent manner. Even if that comparison makes it look subpar compared to other films.

By and large, they aren't doing that.

Frankly, any idiot can say "The CGI was bad and the acting sucked and this was just silliness for two hours". It doesn't take some "evolved understanding of film" to spot that stuff, or to just say it, whether its true or not.

And by the same token, if you are a critic and have a knowledge of film, one assumes you would also have a knowledge of the spectrum of film and genres. It just seems absolutely absurd to go into what you KNOW will be an almost straight action movie and expect it to have loads and loads character development, and then to condemn it for that lack of development. Indiana Jones movies didn't have much in the way of character development. Nor did Die Hard, the Lethal Weapon films, or any NUMBER of beloved/classic actions movies. And yet, I don't recall critics savaging them for it.

 

[The Guard]

Just because G.I.Joe was based on cartoons, comics, and toys doesn't mean they can s**t all over the established backstory and personalities of those characters.

I'm pretty sure that, other than maybe WATCHMEN on some level, every single comic book and cartoon adaption ever has done this, in some fashion. It's annoying, but it is the nature of the Hollywood adaption.

 

[The Guard]

Read a few more reviews, and I feel like I don't need to read anymore, because they're basically all the same. I really, in the long run, don't care what most critics say. It's always fascinating though, to see "film school reject style" vitriol.

It's this kind of stuff that gets me about the critic reviews:

Today's evil is brought to you by a Scottish weapons industrialist who wants to force the world to bend to his will and then his operatives will take over. He comes from a long line of rascals, apparently, because the very first scene takes place in France in the year 1641 and involves a man in an iron mask. Because that's exactly what belongs in a "G.I. Joe" movie.

There's a lot of that kind of stuff. A clear lack of knowledge about the basics of the mythology. As evidenced by oh, about 75 percent of the critics, who, in mocking the film, outright mock the mythology it's based on to begin with as well.

(The character names - which include such howlers as "Dr. Mindbender" - give you an idea of the general wit involved.)

Ripping on the codenames again.

Actually, lots of things never become clear in "G.I.," which is so busy setting up a sequel that it doesn't even tell us what has become of two of the three main bad guys

Really?

About 80 percent of the reviews start with "Critics werent allowed to see a screening of this" or some varation of it.

And most of these reviews just aren't that clever. They are, almost every single one of them, stuffed with the same angry reviewer cliches, like "No Joe, Say it Aint So Joe (which I think I saw about 12 times), etc.

There's a general lack of logic and dislike of the source material that's informing almost everything that's written about the story and the concepts. Critics are *****ing about the nanobots that have to be weaponized (there is a reason for the weaponization, per the script, which this movie obviously has about 95 percent of in it, which has to do with McCullen's hatred of the French), things like "The action doesn't make sense". Really? The over the top, bombastic action strains credibility of physics? Really?

I get the sense that a lot of them simply didn't, or couldn't, pay attention to the movie very much, because when the worst line of dialogue you can come up with is "This is just the beginning" or something like "Yo Joe" or "Real American Heroes", etc...yeah.

 

[craigdbfan]

Looks like the backlash is starting to become apparent.

The LA Times is reporting that Joe Morgenstern reviewed the movie based on the trailer. Guess some didn't take to kindly to Paramounts blocking.

"But why bother seeing the movie at all? For the Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern, not seeing is believing. When Paramount refused to screen the film for him, the critic called the studio's bluff by writing a review anyway, basing his opinion on a viewing of the film's trailer. This has to be a first for a critic at such a widely respected publication. So far there has been precious little consternation, which I take as a clear sign of just how little regard the elite media has for the cynical way studio summer films are made and marketed.

Morgenstern's justification? As he wrote:

Why do I have to see it to review it? People debate the merits of movies they haven't seen all the time--especially on the message boards of the Web, where vast numbers of fanboys, apprentice fanatics and professional grousers turn an endless supply of baseless assumptions into groundless conclusions. At first I felt shut out, but then I realized ... the studio has set me free to reach my own conclusions--not quite groundless but close--on the basis of the "G.I. Joe" trailer.

Needless to say, Morgenstern concluded that the movie was a stinker. But was he being fair to the film, even if it had every appearance of being an unbelievably dumb exercise in mindless violence, by reviewing it without seeing it? Or was that a defensible act by a critic who had been deliberately kept away from seeing the movie? I'm torn between my regard for Morgenstern and my concern that this sets a bad precedent.

Does anyone have a strong opinion, yea or nay?

 

[terry78]

This was the film of the year that is the black sheep. There's one every year where the media has gotten wind of how much it's supposedly going to suck, so they already go in with a mindset. And a positive review already makes you out to be a shill or something.

 

[The Guard]

You know, I almost said "A lot of these reviews could be based on the trailer".

 

[Figs]

Great points and examples The Guard!

 

[Timstuff]

Great points and examples The Guard!

Agreed. Well said, The Guard!

I was going to see this movie at 8:00 tonight, but since one of my brothers is getting home late we're going to be seeing it at midnight. I'll try to post an initial reaction when I get back, with hopefully a more in-depth review this weekend.

BTW, I think I'm noticing a very clear trend that people who were looking forward to the movie are liking it, and a lot of people who were complaining from the start are hating it. I haven't seen it yet so I can't be sure, but I think that with the mainstream critics in particular, they are approaching the movie as if it has a stigma since it's based on a toy line, is hot on the heels of Transformers 2 (which they hated), and was not screened for the general press. With that in mind, can you really blame Paramount for not wanting to screen it? Some of these critics seem to have more disdain for the GI Joe cartoons and toys than they do the movie itself.

 

[TheVileOne]

Well Paramount only screened it to their plants, so what do you expect? They know they made a POS.

 

[xwolverine2]

Agreed. Well said, The Guard!

I was going to see this movie at 8:00 tonight, but since one of my brothers is getting home late we're going to be seeing it at midnight. I'll try to post an initial reaction when I get back, with hopefully a more in-depth review this weekend.

BTW, I think I'm noticing a very clear trend that people who were looking forward to the movie are liking it, and a lot of people who were complaining from the start are hating it. I haven't seen it yet so I can't be sure, but I think that with the mainstream critics in particular, they are approaching the movie as if it has a stigma since it's based on a toy line, is hot on the heels of Transformers 2 (which they hated), and was not screened for the general press. With that in mind, can you really blame Paramount for not wanting to screen it? Some of these critics seem to have more disdain for the GI Joe cartoons and toys than they do the movie itself.

i thought the trailer was crap... but i knew it would at least have some fun moments like transformers.
i was hoping with my low expectations id be dissapointed.

nope it was even worse.

 

[Timstuff]

Well Paramount only screened it to their plants, so what do you expect? They know they made a POS.

Any proof that AICN, Latino Review, Chud, IGN, and the others were all bought off to give it good reviews? Other than that they were invited to see it, and you hated the movie?

 

[terry78]

It's pretty sad that people view the above as plants, when they have been some of the most reliable geek reviewers for a decade or more.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I know. They just want this movie to fail. Hey, maybe the liked the movie? I guess people who respond positively to the movie that means they're plants right? They can't actually like the movie and *gasp* have a different opinion and not take things so seriously!

 

[Sarge 2.0]

Some critics may have a more evolved sensibility about film. In general, though? Hardly. Not based on what I've seen here, and in the past.

It strikes me as ridiculous to believe with some of these reviews that most of these critics have an inherent higher understanding of film than the average person. There's simply not much there to support that. A broader vocabularly maybe, when they're sitting there with a thesaurus. .

People with a high understanding of film shouldn't just be making broad statements about an entire film and then relying on slanderous jokes and puns in their reviews instead of actually assessing the movie, they should be specific and knowledgeable about a film's strengths and weaknesses, in the context of FILM. They should be comparing this movie to other movies, to the source material, to literature, assessing the various techniques, approaches, etc, and doing so in intelligent manner. Even if that comparison makes it look subpar compared to other films.

By and large, they aren't doing that.

Frankly, any idiot can say "The CGI was bad and the acting sucked and this was just silliness for two hours". It doesn't take some "evolved understanding of film" to spot that stuff, or to just say it, whether its true or not.

And by the same token, if you are a critic and have a knowledge of film, one assumes you would also have a knowledge of the spectrum of film and genres. It just seems absolutely absurd to go into what you KNOW will be an almost straight action movie and expect it to have loads and loads character development, and then to condemn it for that lack of development. Indiana Jones movies didn't have much in the way of character development. Nor did Die Hard, the Lethal Weapon films, or any NUMBER of beloved/classic actions movies. And yet, I don't recall critics savaging them for it.

Read a few more reviews, and I feel like I don't need to read anymore, because they're basically all the same. I really, in the long run, don't care what most critics say. It's always fascinating though, to see "film school reject style" vitriol.

It's this kind of stuff that gets me about the critic reviews:

Today's evil is brought to you by a Scottish weapons industrialist who wants to force the world to bend to his will and then his operatives will take over. He comes from a long line of rascals, apparently, because the very first scene takes place in France in the year 1641 and involves a man in an iron mask. Because that's exactly what belongs in a "G.I. Joe" movie.

There's a lot of that kind of stuff. A clear lack of knowledge about the basics of the mythology. As evidenced by oh, about 75 percent of the critics, who, in mocking the film, outright mock the mythology it's based on to begin with as well.

(The character names - which include such howlers as "Dr. Mindbender" - give you an idea of the general wit involved.)

Ripping on the codenames again.

Actually, lots of things never become clear in "G.I.," which is so busy setting up a sequel that it doesn't even tell us what has become of two of the three main bad guys

Really?

About 80 percent of the reviews start with "Critics werent allowed to see a screening of this" or some varation of it.

And most of these reviews just aren't that clever. They are, almost every single one of them, stuffed with the same angry reviewer cliches, like "No Joe, Say it Aint So Joe (which I think I saw about 12 times), etc.

There's a general lack of logic and dislike of the source material that's informing almost everything that's written about the story and the concepts. Critics are *****ing about the nanobots that have to be weaponized (there is a reason for the weaponization, per the script, which this movie obviously has about 95 percent of in it, which has to do with McCullen's hatred of the French), things like "The action doesn't make sense". Really? The over the top, bombastic action strains credibility of physics? Really?

I get the sense that a lot of them simply didn't, or couldn't, pay attention to the movie very much, because when the worst line of dialogue you can come up with is "This is just the beginning" or something like "Yo Joe" or "Real American Heroes", etc...yeah.

Internet bloggers =/= real film critics. A.O. Scott, Ty Burr, Jim Emerson, Manohla Dargis, Roger Ebert, Joe Morgenstern, Christy Lemire, etc. are all real film critics.

Which means they've seen films by Ophuls, Antonioni, Altman, Pasolini, Ozu, Tati, Fassbinder, Cassavettes, Fellini, Rossellini, etc. And thus have a wider breadth of knowledge and understanding of film than you. Which is basically a fact. Also, when you see *any* of the above critics review the film you should give it a read. You just might learn something.

 

[Timstuff]

In Ebert's review he basically insults anyone who likes the movie. I don't care how many movies you've seen, that's internet troll behavior and professionals should not be acting that way. I'm sick of the idea that because someone is a "proffessional" movie watcher means that they should dictate what other people watch, or that their opinion is better than everyone else's. And given that Transformers 2 is one of the most successful movies ever despite being one of the worst reviewed this year, I think the general audience is getting fed up with the elitist attitudes of many critics too.

I'm not saying I want critics to become irrelevant, because they are an important part of the industry. However, they are only driving themselves into irrelevance when they insult people's intelligence just because they find a lowbrow action movie entertaining, and that's not benefiting anyone. By endorsing the elitist idea that there are "good movie watchers" and the rest are the drooling masses, they are only giving those "drooling masses" all more reason to ignore them.

 

[CelticPredator]

Internet bloggers =/= real film critics. A.O. Scott, Ty Burr, Jim Emerson, Manohla Dargis, Roger Ebert, Joe Morgenstern, Christy Lemire, etc. are all real film critics.

Which means they've seen films by Ophuls, Antonioni, Altman, Pasolini, Ozu, Tati, Fassbinder, Cassavettes, Fellini, Rossellini, etc. And thus have a wider breadth of knowledge and understanding of film than you. Which is basically a fact. Also, when you see *any* of the above critics review the film you should give it a read. You just might learn something.

Stop being like that. You come across very rude, and snobish.

 

[Red Mask]

Critics unfortunately become too informed on what makes great films. Adapting franchises like G.I.Joe - which has so much backstory - is bound to get confusing even for mediocre critics. While they'll jump at the style of Dark Knight, they can lose sight of G.I.Joe's own entertaining aspects. In today's world people confuse adapting current sensibilities to just making a fun update to old work.

I agree that Transformers 2 was a waste. Sommers Van Helsing was corny to me because I have a lot of respect to classic monster films. He struck the right note with G.I.Joe, even in this pos 9/11 world.

 

[Sarge 2.0]

In Ebert's review he basically insults anyone who likes the movie. I don't care how many movies you've seen, that's internet troll behavior and professionals should not be acting that way. I'm sick of the idea that because someone is a "proffessional" movie watcher means that they should dictate what other people watch, or that their opinion is better than everyone else's. And given that Transformers 2 is one of the most successful movies ever despite being one of the worst reviewed this year, I think the general audience is getting fed up with the elitist attitudes of many critics too.

I'm not saying I want critics to become irrelevant, because they are an important part of the industry. However, they are only driving themselves into irrelevance when they insult people's intelligence just because they find a lowbrow action movie entertaining, and that's not benefiting anyone. By endorsing the elitist idea that there are "good movie watchers" and the rest are the drooling masses, they are only giving those "drooling masses" all more reason to ignore them.

I just read the review. He didn't insult anyone.

Also, if you were even vaguely familiar with Ebert's writing you would know that it's his dictum to *not* dictate what people watch. Any good critic will tell you that, because any good critic knows not to say "See this/don't see this" or "you will/won't like this". A critics job is to communicate their reaction to the film so that the reader can discern whether or not to see it based on how the critic reacted. Even if the critic reacted negatively, someone could still be motivated to see the film because they might like the things that the critic disliked.

 

[xwolverine2]

I just read the review. He didn't insult anyone.

Also, if you were even vaguely familiar with Ebert's writing you would know that it's his dictum to *not* dictate what people watch. Any good critic will tell you that, because any good critic knows not to say "See this/don't see this" or "you will/won't like this". A critics job is to communicate their reaction to the film so that the reader can discern whether or not to see it based on how the critic reacted. Even if the critic reacted negatively, someone could still be motivated to see the film because they might like the things that the critic disliked.

yeah seriously..

ebert's review (even if i dont agree with them) are always extremely professional

this guy wrote the book on critiqueing... literally
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/10/eberts_little_rule_book.html

 

[xwolverine2]

just read ebert's review... cant stop laughing at the ice caps bit

 

[deathshead2]

yeah seriously..

ebert's review (even if i dont agree with them) are always extremely professional

this guy wrote the book on critiqueing... literally
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/10/eberts_little_rule_book.html

Wow, Gene was right, I'm never going to watch a trailer ever again.