Summer Movie Tour: G.I. Joe

It always worries me to see at the beginning of a movie when it says that it is based on toys. Consequently, I did not have high expectations for G.I. Joe, even though I have a bad full of them somewhere in the garage at this very instant. G.I. Joe was movie #2 on the day, and the first one (District 9) was so good that (again) I wasn't expecting much from this one. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

G.I. Joe is about an elite group of military professionals from all over the world. It is a top secret outfit that most officials around the world don't know about. The saying that I caught a couple of times in the movie is, "When all else fails, we don't." And that is the type of attitude that this unit is supposed to portray. Basically, the plot is as follows:

In the "near future," a case of warheads containing nanotechnology that is capable of destroying an entire city is stolen by a mysterious group which is known as Cobra. Two characters (Duke and Ripcord) are part of a team who are initially charged with transporting the warheads, but they get attacked by superior, technologically advanced enemies. In comes G.I. Joe to stave off the enemies and save the today, temporarily. What follows is a series of collisions between both sides, and some revelation of characters' pasts come out as well.

My assessment: Much better than expected. I have to be honest, in case you haven't picked up on it by now, I expected this movie to be total junk. I thought it would be over the top and completely unrealistic. Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of what happens is unrealistic by today's standards, but (some of) it is not totally unreasonable in the "near future" when this movie is set. There are a couple of cheesy lines that cracked me up: "Yo Joe!" and "Knowing is half the battle." But come on, given 'em a break, those were classic G.I. Joe lines. I think there may have been more of an uproar if they hadn't been included. It is definitely a fast paced, high action movie with plenty of fighting, killing and things blowing up. That's kind of what we're looking for in a summer movie anyway, isn't it?

My recommendation: If you're looking for just a good time watching a movie, then go see it. It is a lot of fun to watch, even though parts of it are kind of cheesy. It's not nearly as bad as other movies that I've seen, and it had enough action to keep you moving from scene to scene.

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