‘G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra’
The folks at Paramount wouldn’t screen “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” for critics—they must love the movie so much they want to keep it to themselves. But 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 I was missing the point of a double blessing. Paramount has spared me the pain of sitting through another military-toy epic (the recent “Transformers” sequel having been a near-death experience), and 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.
The first thing that happens in the trailer involves the Eiffel Tower, which is hit by a missile and makes a splash by falling into the Seine. I don’t like movies that trash the Eiffel Tower, although I loved “The Lavender Hill Mob,” in which Alec Guinness’s mild-mannered bank clerk smuggles gold bars out of England by turning them into Eiffel Tower paperweights.
The second thing involves an actor intoning, voice-over: “We have never faced a threat like this. A team is being assembled. They’re the best operatives in the world. When all else fails, we don’t.” Even apart from the actor pronouncing “assembled” as “assimbled,” the speech suggests a sound clip from an early rehearsal of a junior-high-school pageant. I don’t like movies with bad actors reading dumb lines.
Most of all, I don’t like vast industrial productions based on toys I never played with as a kid (although the first “Transformers” was actually good fun). When I wrote a review suggesting that the sequel would hasten the end of civilization, a reader emailed me to say, “I have more than 700 Transformer toys and you don’t know . . . ” That’s as far as I read, since what I did know is that he was right. I am no more qualified to judge the details of these toy-based monstrosities than a toy critic—there are toy critics, aren’t there?—would be qualified to review “Casablanca.” (Though a battery-powered Rick puffing real smoke might be collectible.)
Nonetheless, I insist on my right to say that “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” will also hasten the end of civilization and may well be as dreadful as it’s said to be by countless online blatherers who, exactly like me, haven’t seen a single frame of it on a big screen. These days, not seeing is believing.
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I posted someone else's review, which I agree is a cop out. So here is why I think GI Joe is not worth $10 or two hours. I get the nostalgia factor, but I don't see how the toys or the cartoons are remotely connected to this waste. I am all for mindless entertainment and even violence--I liked the first Transformers--but it has to have SOMETHING else. Anything. A joke or two here or there. ANY character that we can relate to.
ReplyDeleteNone of GI Joe's dialogue seems remotely worth listening to--in fact, I'm a little concerned it will make me stupider. Pretty faces and explosions on a big screen? Really? That's what they're selling? They know that that's all we've been getting for the past 10 years, right? At least before it's been with a little more artistry so as not to be entirely insulting to the paying audiences; allowing us to slightly mask our addictions to big booms and sexy sexy. This? Well, it's simply an embarrassment for all involved.