'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' review

Sienna Miller (Credit: Paramount)

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'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' video game review

Is this shooter a real American hero or zero?

American soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are recruited by the mysterious G.I. Joe military organization. Their mission: work alongside good guys General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park), Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Breaker (Said Taghmaoui), to take down the evil Cobra organization and its leaders McCullen (Christopher Eccleston), The Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Baroness (Sienna Miller) and Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee).

The buzz: The plan seemed so simple: take a toy line/cartoon with exceptional name recognition and nostalgia value and turn it into a big budget summer blockbuster action movie. It worked for "Transformers," why not "Joe"? But "Cobra’s" rise into theaters has been hampered by negative fan reaction to its initial trailers and rumors that director Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy,” “Van Helsing”) was booted from the editing room. Adding further fuel to the fire, Paramount chose not to screen the film for critics before it opened. Does that decision give the movie less credit than it deserves?

The verdict: That “G.I. Joe” is completely ridiculous should come as a surprise to no one. That it's not an outright disaster might be a different story. The cast is more than adequate (especially the villainous trio of Eccleston, Gordon-Levitt and the insanely hot Miller), the gadgets are genuinely cool and the whole thing has a sweetly campy innocence that borders on naiveté, and proves far too disarming to merit loathing (let's all give thanks Michael Bay didn't get his hands on this). But the film has been made for only two audiences: those who thought the '80s cartoon was abso-freakin’-lutely awesome and anyone who finds a mindless fantasy world of techno-military action abso-freakin’-lutely awesome on its own terms. If you fall into either of those camps by all means see this movie right now. It's so slick and fast paced you'll barely find time to refill your Mountain Dew! But if you're craving more than disposable thrills—you know, something like the respectable blockbuster entertainment historically found in the best of Bond, Bourne, Batman, "Star Trek" and any number of Spielberg enterprises, or even the canny/cheesy satirical spectacle of Paul Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers"—you won't find it here.

Did you know? Due to caution over protecting the film’s script, Nichols auditioned for Scarlett by reading lines from “Van Helsing,” and ultimately signed on to the movie without ever reading the screenplay. Fortunately for her, the role is considerably less embarrassing than the blow-up-doll shtick Megan Fox was given in “Transformers.”

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