Hooray! Another over-the-top, loud (very loud) CGI filled pile of dross for the summer. As if we haven't had enough already. This time, the popular boy's toys GI Joe comes crashing to the big screen like some uninvited party guest, and with Stephen Sommers (he of The Mummy fame) at the helm, it's throw everything you have at the screen and see if it sticks. Most slides off and lands in a pile on the floor.
US Army officers Channing (I look like every other movie star wannabe) Tatum and Marlon (I'm the comic relief, and I use the word comic very loosely) Wayans have been assigned to deliver a new deadly weapon when it is almost stolen by a surprise ambush, led by dark haired Sienna Miller. But wait! The cavalry arrive in the form of an elite special ops platoon called the GI Joes. Naturally, Tatum and Wayans want to join, as they battle against the evil that is led by weapons genius Christopher Eccleson and his nasty but disposable men.
Thus, we have two hours of explosions, shooting, fighting and mass destruction on a level that even the Transformers would be proud of. So not to make it look like its another 'American forces, aren't we great' movie, they have enlisted a computer and surveillance expert with a dodgy Spanish accent and a tough Brit with the kind of Cockerny accent you would expect Americans to dream up if they wanted a football thug to appear in a movie. Admittedly, unlike Transformers 2, Sommers does realise that this is all too ridiculous for words and adds some humour into the proceedings, and yes, it's so over the top that you can't help but laugh at it. Yet he lets himself down by adding unnecessary flashbacks explaining how the characters got to where they are today, usually through violence, and the violence is, for a film aimed at kids, incredibly high and quite graphic.
The performances are on a level of phoned in to non existent. Dennis Quaid, as the leader of the GIs does his patriotic thing of looking mean and moody and 'we're doing this for the President', while Canning Tatum fits perfectly into the role of brain dead grunt with too much testosterone. Marlon Wayans comes across as a randy soldier who hasn't had a woman in years, and for all those teenage boys who need to up their totty count, instead of Megan Fox, we have Sienna Miller (with the strangest accent known to man) and Rachel Nichols dressed in an array of leather.
The two most curious performances, however, come from indie regular Joseph Gordon Levitt and Mr Eccleson. Levitt has been in some of the finest indie hits of recent years (Brick, anyone?) so why is he here doing this? The same question could be asked of former Doctor Who Eccleson. Did he leave that show for this?
In summing up, if you like your films loud with loads of explosions and fighting, then you will lap this tripe up. To me, it was like watching a video game but not having any control over what happens. In a summer full of poor movies, was I expecting too much that this could be good? Maybe I was. That's wishful thinking for you.
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