G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

A typically frenetic actioner from Stephen Sommers, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra follows an elite group of commandoes – including Channing Tatum’s Duke, Marlon Wayans’ Ripcord, and Rachel Nichols’ Scarlett – as they attempt to stop a nefarious arms dealer (Christopher Eccleston’s Destro) from leveling several global cities. As expected, Sommers has infused G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra with a blistering pace that initially makes it easy enough to overlook the film’s various deficiencies, as scripters Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett have infused the proceedings with a slick, downright superficial sensibility that’s reflected in everything from the dialogue to the characters to the twists within the plot. The atmosphere of unapologetic cartoonishness is exacerbated by the almost eye-rolling overuse of computer-generated special effects, with the pervasive lack of reality ensuring that, more often than not, the experience of watching the movie is akin to the experience of watching somebody play a video game. And although Tatum delivers as hopelessly bland a performance as one might’ve anticipated, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra does boast impressive work from talented actors such as Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (with the latter’s unabashedly over-the-top turn as a mad scientist ranking as one of the movie’s most entertaining attributes). There inevitably reaches a point, however, at which Sommers’ relentlessly broad modus operandi simply becomes too much to take, and the film slowly-but-surely morphs from an inoffensive time-waster to an interminable assault on the senses. The inclusion of a few better-than-expected action sequences (eg an impressive chase through the streets of Paris) ultimately ensures that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra never entirely sinks to the level of Transformers-like incompetence, yet it’s clear that movies of this ilk simply have no business running this long (ie 80 minutes at the max would be ideal).

** out of ****