Tasunke's Random Ramblings

So, I had an awesome evening tonight. Ajii won a contest from a local radio station where we got two free rounds of laser tag, free dinner at a new local restaurant, the Hard Hat Stakehouse, and tickets to the midnight showing of the new GI Joe movie, “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” for four people. He was kind enough to invite myself, Tau, and Blackmage along. I believe the title of this entry succinctly summarizes my impressions of this movie. In other words, it was awesome! ^_^ (Review, with some minor spoilers, after the jump.)

All the players were there… Duke, Scarlet, The Baroness, Cobra Commander, Destro… etc. Though with interesting new takes on them. I like how they updated the look and setting to reflect a mix of modern and near future technology, including product placement like Cisco telepresence holographic teleconference technology, and what appeared to be an iPod being used by Scarlet at one point.

Of course, reflecting this near-future setting, what sort of weapon could be used by a terrorist organization that would represent the pinnacle of weapons technology? Something that would be quite effective at striking fear into the hearts of the people, something ill-understood yet still vaguely known about by the common person, something futuristic. Why nanotechnology of course, what else? ;)

The plot revolves around these four nanomachine warheads that can eat through anything. They’ve been produced by MARS for NATO, and are being transported from the factory by Duke’s squad. En route they are attacked by a bunch of disposable flunkies led by The Baroness, who has come to steal them.

Interestingly enough, The Baroness is actually American, doesn’t speak with a generic Eastern European accent like in the cartoons, and apparently she and Duke have some kind of past together (as he calls her by name when he first sees her). The dynamic between the two of them because of this relationship works well in the movie and provides some very nice plot hooks.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the fight scenes, both the hand to hand and melee fighting seemed well choreographed and enough over the top to fit with the slightly over-the-top feeling of the GI Joe setting in general. The underwater dog-fight scenes near the end of the movie were also a very welcome treat.

Nothing in the movie really stood out as out of place in the setting, really. The effects were well done, with nothing really standing out as jarring, or breaking the suspension of disbelief. Though there’s one point where they blow up an arctic ice sheet and pieces of it start sinking in the water.

The point was brought up after the movie was over that ice is typically less dense than water, so actually shouldn’t be sinking like that, unless there’s some unknown factor of the ice in the arctic ice sheets that actually makes part of them denser than water. (Not likely, IMO.) That being said, that really was the only really bad science gaffe in the movie that we noticed. (Not considering the near-future science fiction stuff, just the known science.)

That being said, that still didn’t manage to break my suspension of disbelief and is a minor flaw in an otherwise great movie. I do hope they continue on for another one, as they have certainly provided some good hooks in this movie for a sequel.

Tags: GI Joe, movie, review

This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 4:02 am and is filed under Entertainment (General). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.