I don’t always see movies with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in them, but when I do, I always enjoy him.
I have advantages when I see a GI Joe movie. I never saw the cartoon and I have no vested interest, so they can’t be “ruined” for me. I enjoyed the first GI Joe movie and this one is better.
I don’t always see movies with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in them, but when I do, I always enjoy him.
I have advantages when I see a GI Joe movie. I never saw the cartoon and I have no vested interest, so they can’t be “ruined” for me. I enjoyed the first GI Joe movie and this one is better.
Ninjas. The Rock. Weapons upon weapons upon ideas of weapons that only exist in movies like this and function. Tiny bee bombs that chase the Joes. A motorcycle that breaks into five separate, rolling bombs. Classic GI Joe cartoon exposition in five sentences or less…and, then, more action!
If you didn’t know, the guys that wrote Zombieland (Rhett Reese and Paul Wenick) wrote this. Remember how weird and sideways that movie came out?
The Joes are the heroes. The US government is not the hero of this movie. The warden of the prison where Cobra Commander is being kept is underneath Germany, “so deep that it’s back in international jurisdiction” so not bound by US law (or German law, one assumes). The water boarding jokes by the fake US president come from a place of “business as usual.” A subversive acknowledgement of what goes on “for real.” It feels very Zombieland. Very weird.
The craziest message of this movie is that you should follow people, not principles. Not the government. Not the Constitution. We are following JOE.
In real life, many people are slightly worried about individual citizens who have personal armories in their kitchens… but not when it’s an honest, actual, GI Joe. It’s Bruce Willis. He’ll use his powers for good. Bruce Willis and his “Tread Ripper Tank Vehicle with Missile Launching Cannon” is just an average American GI Joe being prepared. We aren’t following the government. We’re following Joe to retain the status quo. That’s all. It’s the best we can do at this time.
The weirdest thing about the movie is that it’s an Army movie but… it’s not. In Transformers, the army is backup for the Transformers. They KNOW the robots are good guys. The bad guys, besides the Decepticons, are the bureaucrats who can’t “read the field.”
Here the army is being used BY the bad guys. The Army is not portrayed as heroes. They are drones that follow orders and don’t question the destruction of the greatest cities on Earth. Sure, they don’t know that the orders are coming from Cobra Command, but, mindlessly, they do it. So when they go all “hooah” it doesn’t feel like the morale builder it’s supposed to be in real life. Like, I wish they hadn’t used it when the army is, so clearly, being used as dupes.
I guess I’m saying, about this CLEARLY candyland action movie, is, that, lets not ever let Cobra Commander take over the army.
For the rest of it? The ninja fighting was amazing. Dwayne Johnson is great and Bruce Willis nails it. See it for all of that and know that Rhett Reese and Paul Wenick are a little worried that our nation’s power structure might not be in the best hands.
Jackie Kashian