G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Written by: Stuart Beattie & David Elliot
Directed by: Stephen Sommers

Starring: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, Rachel Nicols, Christopher Elccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Rated PG-13

Duke (Tatum) and his buddy Ripcord (Wayans) are a couple of soldiers on a top secret mission to move some top weaponry for the government. Suddenly their crew gets bombarded by these kick ass ninja looking crew with super sonic guns and a crazy non-radar detectable plane lead by The Baroness (Miller) and her baddies. Duke tries to chase her down when she steals his case of missiles, but instead of blasting him into oblivion like she does everyone else, she pauses, says his name, to which he replies ?Ana?? then she burns off. Duke and Ripcord get saved by ?Scarlet? (Nicols), a red-headed ninja master, ?Heavy-Duty? (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who is in fact heavy-duty, and ?Breaker? (Sa?d Taghmaoui), their high-tech nerd.

After the weapons are retrieved and secured Duke and Ripcord want to know what exactly is going on. They get debriefed by General Hawk (Quaid) and he lets them know that they just witnessed the awesomeness that is G.I. Joe. Top soldiers from a bunch of different countries have joined forces to get rid of all the bad in the world. Or something of the sort. They get a tour of the super secret, super cool base. Level upon level of simulated training rooms, surveillance equipment, even some underwater futuristic crafts. So Duke is like ?hey we want in? and Hawk is all ?we tried to get you four years ago but you was on some bull? and Duke is like ?man I had some personal stuff going down. This is cool. I wanna be down? and Ripcord?s all ?yeah. I wanna get me some of that red-head over there let me in to?. And Hawk?s like ?no!? but of course somehow Duke and Ripcord start training.

Hawk calls McCullen, the founder of M.A.R.S. defense services that actually created the missiles that were the focus of the opening battle like ?hey we saved your stuff? and McCullen?s all grateful?or is he. NO! Turns out he?s there with The Baroness like ?go get my missiles back so we can wreak havoc upon the earth!? But she has longing eyes for Duke despite being married to some needle-nose micro-biologist. And Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) is sent by McCullen to keep an eye on her to make sure she stays in her place.

McCullen has the G.I. Joe dudes enter some code into the missiles to make sure they are re-guarded, but that in fact sends off the locator signal to lead The Baroness and Storm Shadow right to G.I. Joe?s headquarters. Battle ensues. The Baroness and Scarlet get into some heavy girl-on-girl action. Storm Shadow meats his match in a silent, black clad Snake Eyes. Consequently they both get a flash back to when they were like 10 years old training against each other. DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Anyway, the rest of the movie is G.I. Joe trying to stop McCullen, Cobra, and his mysterious Doctor from launching the missiles.

All action. All the time. That?s what the summer was made for and G.I. Joe totally delivers. It?s set in the ?not so distant future? so they don?t really bother to explain all of the technology used. Like where are there super-sonic guns? Cause it?s the future. Planes can fly Mach6? Uh yeah, in the future they can. The plot of the movie is fairly simple and the characters are fun and its clear that the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. It?s genius to build an army of bad guys who have extreme connections to the good guys sent to stop them!

Nobody?s going to win an Oscar for their acting in this movie, but nobody was cheesy enough for me to complain about. I had no problems with any CGI in the movie either. I walked away upset that Transformers 2 wasn?t this good. It was very reminiscent of the first Transformers, maybe even the first X-Men. They lay the ground work for a franchise. The title has a colon, the team survives, the future of the baddies is unclear, leaving room for them to appear in the future. I?m all for it. B+. I?m not sure of the re-watch factor at this moment, but there were no glaring inconsistencies that I could complain about in the car. And the plus is because they threw in a reference to ?kung-fu grip?.