Culture Blues

Film: GI Joe The Rise of Cobra

Congratulations, GI JOE. You have earned your faint praise award. In a summer of action blockbusters ranging from aggressively terrible to insultingly moronic, you have managed to impress simply by being consistently mediocre.

GI JOE:  The Rise of Cobra traffics exclusively in clichés. This, along with heavy integration of unnecessary CGI, is director Stephen Sommers’ (The Mummy) comfort zone. The Mummy series excels precisely because of the cast’s ability to charm their way through a script laden with the same adventure boiler plate as GI Joe. But, where The Mummy and its sequel are able to reach a level of entertaining cheesiness, GI Joe is hamstrung by its leaden cast.

Spearheading the bad acting blitz is Channing Tatum as Duke, hotshot Joe rookie and de facto leading man. Tatum is dull, unsympathetic, and generally interchangeable with any performance from the John Cena filmography.  Barely out-cardboarding Tatum is Siena Miller as the Baroness. Miller shifts unconvincingly from conflicted-sexpot to damsel-in-distress, but settles most comfortably into the role of vapid eye-candy. As a rule, the rest of the cast, despite being peppered with solid actors, turn in flat and joyless performances.

All that is not to say GI Joe is without any redeeming qualities. Ignoring some late game over-indulgence (see: underwater battle that looks more like an assault on a uterus), the action sequences are flashy and enjoyable. The multiple Snakeyes vs. Storm Shadow throwdowns are geek wet dreams. There are explosions. There are villainous reveals that set the stage for a (hopefully improved or torturously unnecessary) sequel.

In essence, GI JOE is mind-numbing summer bullshit at its most harmless. Briefly entertaining and instantly forgettable.