Just when you thought nothing could top Transformers 2 as best action movie of the year, get ready for 117mins of non-stop action complete with great visual effects like the Eiffel Tower’s destruction and futuristic weapons that just never seem to stop firing, in short G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

https://youtu.be/VS_ul_i_HL4

Based on Hasbro’s bestselling G.I. Joe poseable military action figures for boys, this movie has updated the popular TV series in the mid 80s for the big screen in the 21st century. Directed by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy Returns, Van Helsing), this movie will hold you in a vise grip as it brings you from a military base under the Sahara Desert to an underwater base beneath the Arctic ice.

The movie begins “not too far in the future” with James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) giving a speech to NATO about his newly discovered nanotechnology; a weapon with the ability to disintegrate anything that it touches and keep doing so until the killswitch is activated. The U.S Military was tasked to deliver the nanotch warheads with Duke (Channing Tatum) leading the expedition. As expected, the convoy met with an ambush lead by The Baroness (Sienna Miller) that killed all except Duke and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans). However, the G.I. Joe team led by Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eye (Ray Park) and Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui) prevented the warheads’ theft, and brought the 2 survivors back to The Pit, their headquarters in North Africa. At The Pit, Duke and Ripcord meet with General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) the commander of the G.I. Joes.

At this point, McCullen and his accomplice the Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are shown to be using the nanotechnology to build their personal army and McCullen was plotting to steal the warheads to create panic and fear. With the help of the Baroness and Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) the warheads were successfully stolen. This sparked off a massive race against time as the GIs attempt to stop McCullen from launching the warheads and attaining world domination.

The accelerator suits donned by Duke and Ripcord were cool, even though they reminded me of the XBox game, Halo. The performance of these suits and what they can do were well portrayed during the high-speed chase down the streets of Paris as they avoided in Matrix slow-mo Fashion, missiles and cars that were flung at them as easily as if they were toys.

The great visual effects also gave a “wow” factor to the show as the devastating effect of the warheads was displayed through the demolition of the Eiffel Tower. What also made this movie good were its amazing action scenes. The swordfights between Snake Eye and Storm Shadow were amazingly fast and breathtaking. Although Ray Park’s Snake Eye took a vow of silence, it didn’t stop him from successfully giving off a sense of awe in the role. In short, he looked really cool.

Although the movie was fast paced, it wasn’t done at the expense of plot development as director Sommers slowed things down enough to include helpful flashbacks that give viewers a better understanding and clearer picture to why characters are behaving in a certain manner. As the movie rolled on, you learn that there were some personal relationships between Duke and the Baroness and Snake Eye and Storm Shadow.

It’s clear that despite the use of impressive high tech weapons this is a classic and simple “Good vs. Bad” action film. In fact, on the topic of lack of originality, the idea of using stolen weapons of mass destruction for blackmail and world domination was already used as far back as James Bond’s Thunderball in 1965, in Op Center by Tom Clancy and John Woo’s Broken Arrow, before it was spoofed in 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

What could have been improved as well was the acting. Channing Tatum was average as Duke only because his character was 2D enough on its own. Marlon Wayans’s Ripcord was better, with his humor reaching out to the audiences. I also felt that the movie should have showed how the Commander Cobra a.k.a the Doctor and James McCullen were arrested near the end of the movie. But apart from all these minor glitches, the movie was awesome.

Although the G.I Joe Team was made up of top soldiers from around the world instead of the original all-American team and the characters were also slightly tweaked, this movie is definitely no average Joe. With the ending pointing clearly to a sequel, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra just leaves me salivating for more.

Starring: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Rachel Nichols

Director: Stephen Sommers

Language: English with Chinese Subtitles

Genre: Action

Opening 6 Aug 2009

Run Time / Rating 117mins/ PG (Violence)