One thing makes this movie far superior to the original!! Huge Spoiler Alert!! Read on to find out more!!!
Channing
Tatum dies within the first few minutes! Woohooooo!!! I know that may sound mean, but the guy cannot
act to save his life. Paramount in their
wisdom originally figured Tatum wasn’t a strong enough lead to carry the
franchise and decided to wipe him out early on.
The movie received very bad feedback at test screens and some very
strange people wanted more Tatum, hence the movie was withdrawn from the 2012
summer line up. Tatum was called back to
film some extra scenes, probably at a much higher premium cost, showing the
camaraderie and friendship between Duke and Roadblock. Thankfully these scenes are miniscule and
Tatum is still wiped out very early on.
The movie is all the better for it.
Unfortunately,
to my frustration, there are a handful of actors who are terrible but keep
getting roles. Tatum is one of them and
Brad Pitt is another. Never have I seen
either of these two actors deliver a line that does not feel completely
artificial, fake and forced. Simply put,
they cannot act.
Now let’s
get into the movie. There isn’t a great
deal of plot and we don’t really need any. Even yesterday I met someone complaining that
the film doesn’t have much of a story line but how much of a story do you need
in a G.I. Joe movie? Those expecting groundbreaking
drama, character building, layer upon layer of thickly woven story lines should
look elsewhere. It’s like being
disappointed that you can’t get your shoes polished at the dentist. Go in with the correct
expectations and you’ll have a great time, go in with the wrong expectations
and you won’t.
Thanks to
the nanomites from the first movie, the Mummy (Arnold Vosloo) is in the
Whitehouse disguised as the president, the real president (Jonathan Pryce) all
the while being held captive in some basement bunker by Cobra bad guys. Under orders from the fake president, a hit
is sent out after the Joe’s, wiping out all but a few. The Rock as Roadblock (Block for short),
Adrianne Palicki as Jaye and D.J. Cotrona as Flint manage to survive the
hit. Did I mention that Duke played by
Channing Tatum dies??
Adrianne Palicki as Jaye
They
regroup with Snake Eyes (Ray Park), Jinx (Elodie Yung) and last but not least
General Joe Colton (Bruce Willis) to try and save the day in true Hollywood
Blockbuster style. It’s a lot of fun.
The movie
hurries along at a fast pace leaving little time to be bored. The action set pieces include an impressive mountainside
fight, the pretty fantastic destruction of London and a satisfying finale where
each of the Joe’s play to their strengths.
It’s mindless but it’s fun.
Pryce is clearly
enjoying himself in his villainous role as the fake president and The Rock is
as charismatic as ever. I was really
glad to see The Rock take the lead in this.
Despite his wrestling roots and a few bad movie choices, he is actually
severely underrated and deserves a good action franchise to call his own. G.I. Joe maybe what he needs to get back on
track.
Special
mention needs to be made of Storm Shadow played by Byung-hun Lee. The coolest character from the first movie
returns and his scenes with Snake Eyes in this sequel are some of the best
scenes in the movie. The rest of the
characters serve as mostly fillers to flesh out the two opposing teams.
The
post-production 3D conversion is hit and miss.
There is never that great depth you can expect with movies actually
filmed in 3D but there were a few moments that actually made me jump as I
thought I’d just been shot in the head.
All in all
this is a pretty fun night at the movies.
Worth the price of admission and it does exactly what it says on the tin. So much so, that I’m looking more forward to
the next G.I. Joe movie than I am the next Transformers movie.
Check it
out.
Rating 3.5
out of 5.
Bobby
No comments:
Post a Comment