GI JOE: THE MOVIE
The movie jumps right into the action, assuming that if you don’t already know who the characters are, you probably aren’t watching anyway. After an opening montage that affords the Joes an opportunity to pose majestically on the top of the Statue of Liberty (and represents the coolest part of the whole movie), the action proper picks up with Cobra Commander (voiced by the legendary Chris Latta, who also lent his trademark shriek to The Transformers‘ Starscream) and a guy named Serpentor screaming at each other. As was established in the comic and the show, Cobra Commander is constantly vying for control of his own organization against a guy named Serpentor, who was engineered from the DNA of history’s greatest conquerors to be the ultimate warrior. Cobra Commander should have known better than to trust the work of a genetic researcher who walks around shirtless and wearing a billowing purple cape, though, because it turns out that the guy (Dr. Mindbender) didn’t take into account how many of history’s greatest conquerors were insane. Thus, Serpentor emerged as something of a mixed bag, and everyone should have been clued in to his instability as soon as he started insisting on wearing an hilarious snake costume 24 hours a day.
#1 by Nitram Senoj on July 23, 2009 - 10:53 pm
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This movie also debuts a really cool “Cobra” theme song in the intro, if I remember it correctly. Awesome review.
#2 by KeithA on July 24, 2009 - 9:07 am
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It IS a good theme song. I wrote my own though, to the tune of the Banana Splits theme song, that just goes “Cobra-la la la! La lala la! La la la lala lala la!”
#3 by Jen S on July 24, 2009 - 12:02 pm
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OMG that description of Cobra and Destro critiquing each other’s outfits had me howling: both of them must be diciples of Liberace–”I did not come here to remain unnoticed!”
You know what I would shell out good money, lots of it, to see? The Cobra recruitment video. That thing must be a work of art, considering they always had thousands of troops at the ready. “Join COBRA! Fail at everything you do! Retreat! Be led by flamboyant metal queens who constantly battle over whose cape is the grandest of all! Retreat! Fight futilely over the one peephole into the Baroness’ room, desperatley trying to glimpse an actual woman in this testosterone-crazed hellhole! RETREAT!!!!!!!!!!!”
#4 by Blake Matthews on July 24, 2009 - 8:05 pm
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I saw this as a kid and all I remembered was Cobra Commander’s transformation and Duke’s getting injured. I saw it back in 2003 and rolled my eyes with the black characters that either spoke in rhyme or were basketball players. Gotta love the opening action sequence, though.
#5 by MatthewF on July 25, 2009 - 2:36 am
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Speaking as someone who grew up in the hopeless backwater of the UK I can only say that this GIJOE stuff confuses the hell out of me. These aren’t their names! This is Action Force! The big dolls are Action Man! Clearly some sort of alternate universe is at work here.
#6 by Thomas on July 25, 2009 - 5:44 am
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Bear in mind that they do have it over us when it comes to villains – even Serpentor is cooler than Dr X.