G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

"Play it straight, or there's no doubt, I'll turn your eyeballs inside out. "

After losing their entire unit to an enemy force wielding never before scene technology, to servicemen join an elite Black Ops team in hopes of payback.

I tried to stay away (I really did!), but the five dollar theater and curiosity conspired to bring me down. And as the Black Eyed Peas song "Boom Boom Pow" played over the end credits a thought occurred to me: It was more than a your usual pop music tie in -it was a plot synopsis.

Anyone who's ever been a fan of something that gets made into a movie has been guilty of it at some point, and anyone who's read my review of Revenge of the Fallen knows I'm no exception. We fall victim to hope. We let our love of the original form make us cling to anything salvageable in what is usually a flawed adaptation.

And being a child of the eighties, you'd think that's what I'm about to go on about, but that wasn't really the case here. You see G.I. Joe isn't actually a take one the cartoon I knew and loved. It's actually based on the series that followed more than a

decade later- G.I. Joe: Sigma Six. So really I was broken hearted long before the movie even came out. Like I would have been had they called the movie Transformers but based it off of Beast Wars.

This discrepancy allowed me to go into the theater clear headed, and judge it based on it's quality alone- and it was still terrible. There is virtually no redeeming factor to this movie. Even the CG is bad. Seriously how, in 2009 when even the low budget art-house movies can afford a strong graphics performance, does a hyped up "summer smash" like this have crappy visuals?

I hate to say it, but it appears that the Hasbro update trilogy has gone the way many trilogies do. The first installment, '07's Transformers, was a strong entry for cartoon makeovers- even if it was only a 5 or a 6 on the total movie scale. Then came it's fatally flawed sequel Revenge of the Fallen, that tried hard but in the end couldn't stand the "second viewing" test. But they saved the worst for last, by far, with this wholly ridiculous attempt.

Ahhh, but now your saying: 'He said "Virtually no redeeming factor..." and your right dear reader. You see with a movie this bad there can still be one saving grace, the "riff factor". If you can't love it, make fun of it. Watcher X and I spent the entire viewing

trashing the movie and practically choking on our snacks laughing. Hey a good time is a good time right? So for that, G.I. Joe, we salute you.

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A butter knife lobotomy.