John’s Movie Musings

The contest for the worst movie of the summer is finally over.  Transformers 2 had a commanding lead but from all the early reports, GI Joe looked to take the crown…of crap.

Rumors surrounded GI Joe for months.  Supposedly, Hasbro was so worried about irreputable damage to the brand they sent in a “fixer” hot-shot editor to try and salvage the film.  However, the trailers seemed to show a movie beyond help.  Right up to the release, the studio released no pre-screenings for reviewers.  It all looked bad…real bad.

Going in with those kind of expectations, I guess it’s hard for any movie to actually be worse.  Thankfully (and surprisingly), GI Joe was far better than that.  Stephen Sommers directed and you may remember him from The Mummy movies.  I didn’t realize that until later, but if you’ve seen that trilogy, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect here.  Brendan Fraiser even makes a (very out of place) cameo.

The plot’s simple and cheesy.  The dialog is awful.  The characters are one dimensional.  And the science is laughable (remember kids, ice floats).  They hit every “knowing is half the battle” and “kung fu grip” joke so make a chart before you go in and shout BINGO! when you get five in a row.  Unfortunately, they completely missed comedy gold by not throwing a Public Service Announcement after the credits.  This had better be remedied in the inevitable sequel.

GI Joe also suffers from the “Hey! You’re too famous to be an extra” plot spoiler.  They try and throw a twist at the end, but since you are a person who watches movies, you’ll know about it fifty scenes early.

So yeah, GI Joe is not worth seeing in the theater.  It might be worth a rental, tho.  Afterall, it’s far better than Transformers 2 and you are gonna rent that.

Grade: C-