What a waste of my time!!!

Better Late Then Never

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It's not always pleasant to revisit your childhood. Some of the things you loved back then stand the test of time. Star Wars is still great, Dr. Who of the 1970s and 60s remains, below-bargain-basement special effects aside, a fun and well done little program and The Incredible Hulk is better than any attempt to meld a gamma radiation-spawned monster with The Fugitive has any right to be. A lot of the stuff you loved as a kid, however, doesn't survive adult scrutiny. That's because you and I and everybody else don't really know enough when we're young to tell when something sucks. I recall seeing an episode of the original Thundercats cartoon and being struck by how the animation was still very pretty and reasonably fluid, but the storytelling was…so…unbelievably…slow.Well, when I was a child I loved G.I. Joe. I loved the toys, which were the smaller, hard-plastic action figures and not the bigger one with the real hair and clothes you could take off. I loved the cartoon. And I really loved the comic book. As a grown man I can say with complete confidence that the toys and the comic book are still pretty cool, at least until Hasbro's continual deluge of newer and stupider additions to the line destroyed the creative integrity of each. And yes, action figures and comic books about those action figures can have creative integrity. As for the cartoon…?Well, I haven't seen an episode in a good long while and this film-length version makes it hard to judge because this is rather a long way from what the regular show was like. G.I. Joe: The Movie was apparently made by people who said to themselves "You know what would improve our cartoon about a crack U.S. military team vs. a fearsome terrorist group? Let's make it more like Sectaurs! And let's create a new bad guy with the biggest ass in animated history!"The story is about the hidden society of Cobra-La, led by the evil Golobulus (Bergess Meredith), which sent Cobra Commander (Chris Latta) out into the world to destroy human civilization. After years of Cobra Commander proving the only thing he's good at is running away, Golobulus has decided to take charge and orders the seizing of an energy transmitter which he will use to shower the Earth with spores that will mutate Mankind. G.I. Joe gets in his way and various battles where no one gets killed ensue, leading up to a final confrontation where Lt. Falcon (Don Johnson), a reckless and irresponsible soldier, finally proves himself worth of saying "Yo, Joe!" Oh, and Duke (Michael Bell) dies, only to have the movie producers chicken out and have new dialog dubbed in that he was just put into a coma and recovered.Putting aside Cobra-La's Nemesis Enforcer and how he clearly inspired a lot of the character design at Image Comics in the 1990s, the attempt to inject some sci-fi and almost Lovecraftian horror into G.I. Joe is a massive stinkburger. It doesn't even come close to fitting in with the established concept and has to rank as one of the greatest creative missteps of all time. Golobulus and company are the "Greedo shoots first" of G.I. Joe and the only reason it's not as infamous is because this movie came out when we were kids and far less prone to obsessing over one of our favorite things turning to crap.On the other hand, the animation isn't terrible and the voice work, outside of Don Johnson, is as good as I remember. This flick is certainly action-packed, though amazingly repetitive, and Chris Latta's Cobra Commander remains a great juvenile adventure villain. While this film isn't any good, it makes me suspect the original TV show might not look that bad to my now-adult eyes.So, skip G.I. Joe: The Movie and give the original cartoon a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I can't agree with those who called this a great movie. One wonders if they worked for the studio or for Hasbro. Some of the feedback was completely over the top – much like the GI Joe franchise itself. And that's the shame of it, because the GI Joe series had the potential to be really great. But unfortunately Ron Friedman and the studio never fully understood why the show worked, which was largely in spite of their handling of it.We liked GI Joe because the characters were so interesting. Everyone eagerly looked for their favorites to appear in individual episodes, wanting to know more about them and wanting to see them succeed, even if they happened to be members of COBRA. Would it have been too much to ask for just ONE of Cobra Commander's plots to be successful? But unfortunately the writers and producers felt it necessary to dumb-down practically every aspect of the show, deeming the audience either too squeamish or too stupid to accept any form of realism.Despite the fact that the show's basic premise was based on domestic warfare, GI Joe's creators felt it necessary to safeguard their viewing audience from any hint of reality. Cartoon violence that would have been necessary for the show to have any substance was replaced by outright buffoonery on both sides. Most fans kept watching in spite of the writing – willing to overlook the most ridiculous story lines and plot holes because we loved the characters. So naturally, the studio execs did what all executives do when they don't understand their fan base – they took away the show's best redeeming quality. Starting in season 2 they began robbing us of those original characters, replacing them abruptly with new ones that were predictable and uninteresting – all in the name of selling more toys. GI Joe The Movie represents the sad pinnacle of this strategy, with a whole new group of GI Bozos created to take over the franchise, including the absolute worst two ever created – Big Lob and Chuckles, and the completely unnecessary Lt. Falcon. I suspect this new batch was brewed up just in case we had grown attached to any of the Season 2 characters, who no doubt would have been jettisoned in Season 3. We saw so little of some of the original Joes in the movie that I had to check the credits just to make sure they had made a cursory appearance. Needless to say, the franchise collapsed under the weight of such inept leadership and fan ignorance, and a third season was never produced.The movie did have a few high points. Chris Latta gave his usual strong performance as Cobra Commander, Michael Bell had a chance to expand Duke's character, and Burgess Meredith with his gravelly voice brought a good menacing quality to Golobulus. One of the darkest (and best) lines of the entire series is when he said to Falcon "I will stain my hands with your blood." But memorable lines like that were few and far between in the series. Kudos to Friedman for (finally) trying to interject some realism with the death of Duke, but even that was thwarted in the end. We often make fun of his coma scene, comparing it to Futurama's lengthy list of coma patients in the embedded soap opera 'All My Circuits'.Like every agent of COBRA, GI Joe The Movie misses the mark. It's sad because the series had tremendous potential. But the writers consistently went wrong in so many ways, turning action/adventure into unintentional comedy. In their insistence of trying to lower the collective IQ of their viewers, they guaranteed that certain things would always happen during any episode of GI Joe. For starters, COBRA can't shoot straight. You'd think at least one member would have been sent down to the firing range for some target practice. Second, GI Joe has the worst security on the planet. Zartan, Zarana, the Baroness and Firefly could come and go at will and should have just been issued EZ passes for the front gate. Third, the animals were smarter than their human counterparts and in the case of Polly, were more articulate (at least as far as Bazooka was concerned – don't they have IQ tests to get in to GI Joe?)Fourth, there was more depth in the characters' 2-D drawings than there ever was in their development. Despite being the leader of the most lethal terrorist organization on the planet, Cobra Commander has the military prowess of Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes. Duke on the other hand is one of those fortunate people who goes through life never having to second guess himself because he's so perfect. Other characters like Shipwreck, Bazooka and the Dreadnok's are forever doomed to play the fool for comic relief.Fifth were all the things that make you go 'huh?' For example, why do COBRA soldiers never remove their helmets, even in the gym? (how do they shower?) Why does Quick-Kick wear no shirt or shoes in the snow, and Barbecue his suffocating fire-suit in the desert? How DOES Deep Six go to the bathroom in that get-up? And how many times has Lady Jaye gotten knocked unconscious – shouldn't she have been discharged by now for post-traumatic concussion syndrome? I guess since GI Joes never lose a fair fight, the only other option is to either dog-pile them with a dozen enemy soldiers, or bash them over the head with blunt-force trauma.Sixth is that one GI Joe is all it takes to bring down an entire COBRA armada (we call them "One Shot Joe"). A single handgun, a magic javelin, or a piece of fruit was enough for any Joe to win the day. Which raises the final point: GI Joe can never lose – COBRA can never win. End of story, and the premature end of the franchise.

"*Hollywood now proposes that in a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line, Joe's -- well, "G.I." -- identity needs to be replaced by membership in an "international force based in Brussels." The IGN Entertainment news site reports Paramount is considering replacing our "real American hero" with "Action Man," member of an "international operations team." Paramount will simply turn Joe's name into an acronym.The show biz newspaper Variety reports: "G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer." Well, thank goodness the villain -- no need to offend anyone by making our villains Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators of any stripe these days, though apparently Presbyterians who talk like Scottie on "Star Trek" are still OK -- is a double-crossing arms dealer. Otherwise one might be tempted to conclude the geniuses at Paramount believe arms dealing itself is evil.(Just for the record, what did the quintessential American hero, Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine in "Casablanca," do before he opened his eponymous cafe? Yep: gun-runner.) According to reports in Variety and the aforementioned IGN, the producers explain international marketing would simply prove too difficult for a summer, 2009 film about a heroic U.S. soldier. Thus the need to "eliminate Joe's connection to the U.S. military." Well, who cares. G.I. Joe is just a toy, right? He was never real. Right?*" **** Read the rest of this article and then decide how you should honor the face of the man associated with G.I. Joe http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/10849526.html

SPOILERS!! Where else are you gonna find Burgess Merideth, Don Johnson and Sgt. Slaughter all together? Mix them in with our GI Joe team and you got one big production on your hands.Much to Dr. Mindbenders surprise, there is more to Serpentors past than we were all told in "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!". When Cobra is infiltrated by a strange mutant woman, a story unfolds like something from the Twilight Zone.GI Joe is testing the Broadcast Energy Transmitter (BET), a device that sends power through the air like radio waves, when Cobra attacks. The Joes drive Cobra into retreat with major damage to their side. Serpentor is knocked out and taken prisoner. Duke takes a snake arrow in the chest that was meant for Lt. Falcon, his younger half brother, and goes into a coma. Cobra Commander leads them into a haven which turns out to be where he grew up...Cobra La. Many Joes followed and were captured or worse. Led by Golobulus (part man, part snake, part crustacian), Nemesis Enforcer (large manbat) and Pythona (sexy & venomous) take in their weary troops and make plans to free Serpentor and steal the BET.Lt. Falcon abandoned his post, guarding Serpentor. Cobra and Cobra La made their way in, taking out troops and equipment as they go. Lt. Falcon is court martialed and sentenced to major retraining at the SlaughterHouse, a rigorous training camp ran by Sgt. Slaughter. Once Serpentor is Freed and taken to Cobra La, his past is revealed, as is the history of Cobra Commander and his banishment. Then Golobulus explains his plans to launch mutation spores into orbit and ripen them with the energy from the BET. Then as they fall to Earth, they will mutate everyone on the planet except those in the Ice Dome of Cobra La. When Cobra Commander is used as a demonstration, he is mutated into a snakeman. When the captured Joes attempt their escape, Roadblock is the only one who makes it out but is blinded by another spore pod. He finds the mutated Cobra Commander and together work their way back to the original battlefield where they find the other Joes.Cobra La mops the floor with the joes at "THE PITT" (GI JOES command center) and steal the BET out from under them. Joe, in turn sends the full force to COBRA LA to knock out Cobra, Cobra La, free the Joes, get back the BET, and stop the Mutation spores.....a task nearly impossible for a full on attack force of GI JOE......except one....Enter Sgt. Slaughter. He and his band of marauders join up and help take back the battle, the war and the planet.Great animation and acting. Very good movie.