Yo Joe!
I love G.I. Joe.
As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I had one of the original G.I. Joe action figures.
In the 7th grade, I was excited to find the G.I Joe comic book series. I continued to collect them throughout high school and liked the television series a lot. (The comic books were still better, in my opinion, because their plots always seemed a bit more complex.)
When I found out that they were bringing G.I. Joe to the big screen, I knew that I had to go see it. This weekend, I did just that. Overall, I liked G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra a lot.
The writers made a few changes in the G.I. Joe storyline. Most of the changes, I totally understood and had no problem accepting.
For example, in the comic books, several of the original characters were described as being Vietnam veterans. That worked 27 years ago when the comic books first came out. However, it would make these characters too old to be front line troops in a contemporary story.
Also, in the comic books, the Baroness was described as an actual European baroness who got involved with radical causes while in college. Since college campuses of the late 1960s and 70s were filled with radical causes, that concept worked at that time. I'm not sure they could have made it work in a contemporary story, since it would have made her much older than any of the other characters. As a result, I was fine with changing her character.
However, the idea of making Rip Cord a soldier/ pilot instead of an airborne infantryman felt artificial to me. It was as if the writers decided that they needed someone to fly a plane at the end so they pulled the Rip Cord character out of a hat and made him a pilot.
The ironic part is that the G.I. Joe comic book series featured several pilots (Ace, Dog Fight, Lift-Ticket, Major Altitude, Payload, Skystriker, Slip Stream, Updraft, Wild Bill and Windmill). Heck, that series even included an astronaut named Countdown. It would seem to me that they could have brought any of those characters back to serve as a pilot rather than changing Rip Cord's identity.
My biggest complaint about the movie, however, had to do with the acting. When the various actors were playing off of each other - or otherwise dealing with something that was really on the set - each member of the cast did great.
However, in any of the scenes that were dominated by CGI and were obviously done in front of green screen, their performances just didn't feel as convincing. The cast said their lines and performed the action, but their emotional reactions didn't seem right for what was happening around them in this story.
The actors simply slipped out of character at those moments. More importantly, the director wasn't able to help pull them back in.
This, I'm afraid, is the downside of a movie that uses computer graphics heavily. If the actors don't understand exactly what is happening in the scene - because so much of it is happening in post-production - then they're not able to bring their characters to life as effectively.
Regardless, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was a good movie. I'm glad that I went to see it this weekend. I recommend that everyone else does, too.
As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I had one of the original G.I. Joe action figures.
In the 7th grade, I was excited to find the G.I Joe comic book series. I continued to collect them throughout high school and liked the television series a lot. (The comic books were still better, in my opinion, because their plots always seemed a bit more complex.)
The writers made a few changes in the G.I. Joe storyline. Most of the changes, I totally understood and had no problem accepting.
For example, in the comic books, several of the original characters were described as being Vietnam veterans. That worked 27 years ago when the comic books first came out. However, it would make these characters too old to be front line troops in a contemporary story.
Also, in the comic books, the Baroness was described as an actual European baroness who got involved with radical causes while in college. Since college campuses of the late 1960s and 70s were filled with radical causes, that concept worked at that time. I'm not sure they could have made it work in a contemporary story, since it would have made her much older than any of the other characters. As a result, I was fine with changing her character.
However, the idea of making Rip Cord a soldier/ pilot instead of an airborne infantryman felt artificial to me. It was as if the writers decided that they needed someone to fly a plane at the end so they pulled the Rip Cord character out of a hat and made him a pilot.
The ironic part is that the G.I. Joe comic book series featured several pilots (Ace, Dog Fight, Lift-Ticket, Major Altitude, Payload, Skystriker, Slip Stream, Updraft, Wild Bill and Windmill). Heck, that series even included an astronaut named Countdown. It would seem to me that they could have brought any of those characters back to serve as a pilot rather than changing Rip Cord's identity.
My biggest complaint about the movie, however, had to do with the acting. When the various actors were playing off of each other - or otherwise dealing with something that was really on the set - each member of the cast did great.
However, in any of the scenes that were dominated by CGI and were obviously done in front of green screen, their performances just didn't feel as convincing. The cast said their lines and performed the action, but their emotional reactions didn't seem right for what was happening around them in this story.
The actors simply slipped out of character at those moments. More importantly, the director wasn't able to help pull them back in.
This, I'm afraid, is the downside of a movie that uses computer graphics heavily. If the actors don't understand exactly what is happening in the scene - because so much of it is happening in post-production - then they're not able to bring their characters to life as effectively.
Regardless, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was a good movie. I'm glad that I went to see it this weekend. I recommend that everyone else does, too.
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