Sunday, August 9, 2009

Say It 'Aint So "Joe"

I told Aarron I would do it, and I am a man of my word.

I have finally found a movie worse than "Transformers".

There. You happy Bull?

My gosh. I posted my reservations about the new "G.I. Joe" movie on Friday, but the film somehow EXCEEDED my worst fears. The BEST way I can describe the experience is that I felt like I was locked in a Port-A-Potty for two hours that just kept getting flipped over and over and was lit on a fire.

And that's being kind.

The Ol' Bull and I were talking about it after the film and while "Transformers" let me down, I still was able to buy into the established reality of it all. Yes, it is insane to think about alien robots that are able to transform into cars and other vehicles and are staging an intergalactic war here on earth - but they sold it well and you can just let yourself escape into that universe's reality if you want.

"G.I. Joe" made Michael Bay look like Shakespeare. Hell, it made George Lucas look like Shakespeare.

It was all over the place and there was no concept of any kind of boundaries of reality or laws of physics or time or space. And it wasn't like it was a kids movie, either. It felt like they were really aiming to make some kind of credible, action-driven, adventure film.

Fail.

That's what made "Batman Begins" and "Dark Night" so great - they grounded the story and the characters into reality so well, you were actually terrified that these kind of people could actually exist and live among us.

Well, "G.I. Joe" decided to take the opposite route.

It would genuinely make me feel better if I found out the producers, and writers, and director all got together and just had a brainstorming session thinking of the most unrealistic, incoherent nonsense they could think of.

That would at least serve as a plausible explanation.

And they didn't even TRY to capture the essence of the old toys, comic books, cartoons, etc. Everything was slick and modern; there were no tanks or jeeps or anything that resembled G.I. Joe. It was like they wrote a generic movie and then just used Joe names for the characters.

I'll let those of you who have seen the movie vote for which was the worst part:

- G.I. Joe base set under the desert in Egypt

- Cobra base set under the WATER

- The accelerator suits

- The complete lack of any kind of gravity or physics

- Heavy Duty having a British accent

- Breaker being French-Moroccan

- Ripcord being black

- Ripcord being able to fly from Moscow to Washington D.C. in under 10 seconds

- Ripcord trying to be funny

- Ripcord played by Marlon Wayans

- RIPCORD MAKING OUT WITH SCARLETT (I legitimately almost left the theater at that point and would have if I hadn't been completely paralyzed)

- Channing Tatum getting cast as Duke

- Channing Tatum sucking as Duke

- Duke being a pansy the entire movie

- Duke and the Baroness having a love story

- Duke not talking to his fiance (before she was the Baroness) after her brother "died" in war

- Her brother turning into Cobra Commander

- THE BARONESS AND COBRA COMMANDER BEING BROTHER AND SISTER

- Cobra Commander coming off as a cheap, Darth Vader knock-off

- The lack of any reasoning or motivation behind Cobra Commander's rise to power

- "Boom Boom Pow" used on the closing credits

- THE COMPLETE HIP-HOP BASTARDIZATION OF T. REX'S CLASSIC ROCK SONG "BANG A GONG"

Ok, I need to stop now, I'm getting light-headed. It's so hard to choose just one thing from that list - they all just unite together to form a two hour travesty. Of course, they set up a sequel but you can go ahead and count me out for that one.

Between this movie, the Best Buy fiasco, and the Colorado bachelor party weekend that never got off the ground, it just was a bad week all the way around.

Putting it all behind me and looking forward to this week though.

I'm ready for those festivities to begin.

2 comments:

Katie said...

I was dragged to this movie by the boyfriend and the male cousin...I don't know anything about GI Joes...I was a barbie girl all the way...so I can't say as you have josh that I understand everything that the movie messed up because I didnt know any better to begin with...I couldnt even had told you the characters names before I watched the movie....BUT even with all that, I thought it sucked...I'm not a big blow-it-all-up, special effects, all-action kind of girl anyway, but at least give me a believable sub-plot, a love story or something...that crap about your fiance blaming you for your brother dying in combat and then not talking to you AND THEN it makes you into an evil villian...I could have been a brand new GI Joe fan...but this is not a good start

Jack Patrick said...

If inebriated via Gordon-Biersch, like I was, it was pretty dumb but also pretty enjoyable. And Scarlett was pretty pretty.