G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra: 2 out of 5 stars
G.I. Joe Retaliation: 2.5 out of 5 stars
I saw the movie in 2D tonight. Here's my take:
I'm a big fan of the comics as well as the cartoon from the 80s. The cartoon gave life and charisma to all the characters. The comic book gave the characters some depth.
Both G.I. Joe movies haven't really captured the great qualities from both mediums.
Both films are entertaining and the new film is slightly better than the first one, but I really don't feel like seeing either of them again.
Both films have some cool elements done right such as Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Baroness, Scarlett, Firefly, Roadblock and the ninja stuff.
But everything else is just "meh". Each movie has a couple cool action scenes but are buried under mediocre, poorly-filmed ones.
Cobra Commander: totally screwed in the first film and sort of fixed in the second one. The only thing good about his appearance in the second film is that he has his traditional look that everyone wanted. But his voice sucks - is just a low muffled generic voice that sounds like Claw from Inspector Gadget AND he's just boring. He walks around like a diva in this second one and is just not interesting or charismatic as he was depecited in the comic books and the cartoon.
Zartan:My favorite character from G.I. Joe comics/cartoon/toys is given a lot to do, is certainly more interesting than Cobra Commander, and Jonathan Pryce is having fun playing an evil president, but he's still not the bad-ass Zartan from the comics/cartoon. Sure he's an imposter president, but he's as exciting as Senator Kelly from the X-Men film. Zartan needs to kick ass and look like his comic book/cartoon version.
I liked how his bro Zandar showed up at least (played by the a-hole from Avatar).
Lady Jaye: she's definitely attractive but Scarlett had more charisma and was more like the comic book version
Jinx, General Cotton, and Flint: I'm happy they were included but they were just boring and background characters in the film.
If this comic book/cartoon series was perfectly adapted into a totally new reboot, I would definitely include and not change anything with Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Roadblock, Firefly, Scarlett and Baroness. But everyone else needs to either be recast and/or fixed up somehow.
I have to say though, Stevenson's Firefly was the highlight of the film - he was just perfect and he grasped everything what made this character so cool and badass from the comic book/cartoon.
And what the hell IMDB - there IS NO SGT. SLAUGHTER IN THIS FILM. A-holes. I was expecting him to show up, but he didn't.
Nothing after the end credits by the way.
Will give this another chance when it comes out on blu.
