Review: G.I. JOE-THE RISE OF COBRA

Movie: G.I. Joe-The Rise of Cobra

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout

Running Time: 1 hour and 58 minutes

Stars: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Eccleston, Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Writers: Stuart Beattie, David Elliott

Director: Stephen Sommers

The summer blockbuster has been a name always attached to big, dumb, manly action movies that are made to sell toys and popcorn/soda. This is definitely one of those. They almost always seem to follow the same formula:

Main character with issues

+ Sidekick who is almost always comic relief

+ Love interests for both characters

+ Lots of cleavage shots

+ Things blowing up left and right

- Intelligent dialogue, plot and good acting

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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

At first, this might sound like the exact formula for a Michael Bay film, but "Joe" succeeds in some areas where the recent Bay "Transformers" films have failed. Notably, the action scenes are well-filmed. You know almost exactly what's going on at all-times. Slow motion is not unnecessarily used either. The special effects, while not perfect (some look like cut scenes from a video game), do what's needed. The best scene in terms of the special effects and awesomeness, would have to be the Paris/Accelerator Suit scene. That and his utter lack of ego, make me respect Stephen Sommers all the more (although, I shall never forgive him for "The Mummy Returns" and "Van Helsing")

But things aren't perfect with this movie. As mentioned in the formula, the dialogue is really really bad. Almost Transformers bad. But thank God, they did not go the base humor route, and throw in crude sexual jokes for no reason. The humor that is there though for the most part is typical one liner sidekick jokes from Marlon Wayans, that also for the most part do not generate any laughs (I think I chuckled at one line). The acting too isn't all that great either, but thankfully a couple of the actors (Eccleston, Quaid and Gordon-Levitt) know they're in a movie that's based on a line of toy action figures and an 80's animated TV series, and chew the scenery to bits. Thankfully, that and the well-done action scenes save this from joining the list of horrible big-budget blockbusters that have stolen what little intelligence I had left in my head (I'm looking at you "Terminator Salvation" and "Transformers 2").

For a super awful movie, this one's entertainment value increased its overall score to

3 out of 5 stars.

Oh, almost forgot to mention, I cannot wait for the Rifftrax version of this movie because I can guarantee it'll one up quite a few of the great riffs my friend and I were laying down watching this.