5 Reasons why “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is 2009’s better film than “Transformer’s 2: Revenge of the Fallen”

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Whoa. This I didn’t expect. After being made to suffer through the screening of two of the most highly anticipated films of 2009: ‘Transformers 2: Revenge of the fallen’ (ROTF) and ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ (THBP), it seemed almost certain that 2009 was not going to be a very bright year for films. Bold as that claim may be (What about Star Trek? Terminator Salvation? The Train Molester Spycam? Opps… wrong film) I am making the comparison against the current two biggest chart toppers, which are the two previously mentioned.

"O la la. You can take me prisoner anytime."

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (TROC). The earlier trailer seemed decently impressive, even with a sneak peak of the so called clunky-looking ‘Delta 6 Accelerator Suits’ (Looking at it somehow brings ‘HALO’ to mind), but having already been put off by the dissaspointment of both ROTF and THBP I expected the worst from TROC as well. Turns out, there is hope after all for the Joes. Here’s why:

1. There are characters actually worth remembering

… or rather, you could say that you can ACTUALLY remember them. ROTF had a heavy cast of new robots from both the autobot and deception fractions, but other than those already mentioned in the first movie (Transformers), we were pretty much left to figure out who the rest of those robots were as well as their significance to the plot. Hell, not even the casual fans could figure out the identities of some of the robots, let alone wonder if their transformation mode ended up in being a car, bicycle or a condom dispensing machine. For TROC on the other hand, you could actually relate something unique to almost every G.I. JOE character regardless of their JOE/COBRA identities, be it a skill, weapon choice, intelligence, creepiness or just plain stupidity. There is of course a specific focus laid out for some characters (Well you can’t expect EVERY G.I JOE to be detailed out in a single movie now can you?) which could have been done better but nevertheless, I suppose we’re pretty happy about it. From the battle between the two ninjas and the almost cheesy love story plot between Duke and the Baroness + Ripcord and Scarlett, these are definitely characters which you will remember better than a bunch of ‘nameless’ robots marching around almost aimlessly from ROTF.

SnakeEyes: I eat sushi for breakfast, lunch and dinner... with my mask on

2. G.I. JOE is actually a fun film to watch

Let’s not remind ourselves of the idiotic twin autobot brothers from ROTL whose character involvement I believe was to actually to induce humor within the film, only to be greeted with a long irritating disbelief of “What the fuck?”. Let’s face it. If ROTF was meant to be funny, it failed. Not only did it seemed stupid that a bunch of ALIEN robots tried to make an impression of the ghetto attitude, it seemed even more stupid that a pet spy decepticon-turned-autobot actually tried to hump Megan Fox’s leg doggy style. Probably the only consolation with regards to humor for the film was when the idiotic but lovable Agent Simmons was sought back into the plot. But it couldn’t flush out the ridiculousness of the autobot twins. As for TROC, the idea casting of Marlon Wayans to play Ripcord seemed like an almost genius idea, as he delivers his form of humor is its sheer raw state. You’ve got to admit, it would’ve have been a pretty boring film without him. The stupidly involved almost makes you wonder if real idiots like him actually exist in a highly classified/trained military group.

Scene - When handling the accelerator suits

Breaker: Careful! They’re (The suits) worth billions of dollars!

Ripcord: (*Wearing suit) Billions of dollars, I got it.

(*Ripcord then falls over smashing the suit backwards in to the ground)

Ripcord: My bad! Won’t happen again!

(*Turns around and gets smashed by a car)

RipCord: Billions of dollars? No problem. I can definitely break it

3. Stephen Sommers (G.I. JOE’s director) actually did it right

Sure, Michael Bay (Trasnformers 1, 2 director) is almost like Michael Jackson when it comes to films, having achieve it with several major films in the past (Bad Boys I & II, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor etc) but the problem with Michael Bay is that he likes to blow shit up so much that sadly, ROTF blew up in a bad turn for the worse. Now, mention the name Stephen Sommers, and a few films a few films will come to mind: the Mummy Series (All three films), The Scorpion King, and perhaps Van Hellsing. My thought was, is he ready to get out of the desert and medieval vampire hunting scene to actually produce a movie of this caliber? I have to be honest, “The Mummy” films weren’t that great to begin with (Tomb of the Dragon Emperor? WTF) and “Van Hellsing” was almost as ridiculous as the Transformers Angel scene. But where I suspected it will go all wrong in G.I. Joe (Like maybe the G.I. Joes find a mummy tomb and turns into werewolves, battling against the Cobra units who turn out to be… vampires) it actually went pretty well. There was the main plot ensuing the battle between the Joes and Cobra units, as well as side plots between rivals (Who doesn’t think that the ninja fight scene wasn’t cool?) and past relationships which made you go “Hmmmmm oh ok…”, before you are eventually presented the final scene and find out ‘WOOOOOTT!*censored’ [Seriously, watch the film yourself].

4. The science involved is actually believable

So you have a merchant of war, selling highly advanced arms and weapons to both sides. Plus, they’re not just any ordinary arms - Nanomites: microscopic robotic forms which will DISINTERGRATE THE HELL out of anything it touches. (Hmm… ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ anyone?) Now that’s freaking scary. Its not like bullets where you can at least dodge if you can predict its trajectory, but how do you escape something destructive that’s on a minute scale going haywire everywhere? And considering the fact that already the cruisers, delta 6 suits, pulse guns and whatever gadgetry shown in TROC is seemingly far advanced than what we know now, (Well unless it secretly exists currently) it does (in the beginning of the film) mention that ‘In the not so distant future’, which bridges the line of ‘were-not-at-that-stage-of-technology-yet!’ with ‘Hahaha… die motherfuckers! *boom boom pow’. Whatever-near future that is at, at least the buildings and cars still look oddly the same.

"O well. At least i got to see it before it got destroyed"

5. T2: Revenge of the Fallen was a terribly TERRIBLE movie to begin with

It’s undeniable that ROTF still has the best damn CG we’ve ever laid eyes on. In fact, I was so in awe of it I literally wet myself from drooling over the span of the entire show. (Megan Fox included) However, you can’t judge it by CG alone. It’s no argument that the plot for ROTF is one of the worst we’ve seen, and there were plenty of things which made little sense, like how there seemed to be a connection between the number of decepticons present and the rate of their success. Remember the first movie? Blackout (The helicopter transforming deception) wiped out an ENTIRE U.S. military base in the blink of an eye, whilst stealing data regarding the cube from them at the same time. But in ROTF, Megatron led AN ARMY of deceptions against a puny squad of humans in the desert who, (some) were still armed with regular bullets (They said only Sabot rounds were effective against the robots in Transformers 1) aided by only a handful of autobots, but still couldn’t overthrow them. Also I find it hard to believe that where Optimus Prime was merely the ‘brother of Megatron’ in the first film with almost zero chance of winning a one-to-one combat, (Optimus Prime: Sam! If I can’t defeat Megatron you must call the Power Rangers!) suddenly emerges as one of the ‘Divine Primes’ in the second. Hmmm… character change anyone? You might as well call him ‘Neo’. And Jetfire is a freaking robot! Why the hell does a robot need a walking stick????

JetFire: What are you talking about? Its COOL to have a walking stick isn't it?

In essence, the standard expectation line set from ROTF wasn’t very high to begin with, which is probably why I probably found TROC highly entertaining in comparison. Still you have to keep in mind, while ROTF is Transformers second film, (In which the first Transformers did brilliantly well) TROC is G.I. Joes first feature film. So far they have a great next plot to exploit, plenty of room to improve and the only thing they need to watch out for is to not screw it up like how ROTF did.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Rating - 6.7/10