Slashing The Seats

Needless to say, the trailers and early forecasts for G.I Joe didn’t exactly promise Citizen Kane-esque heights of filmic artistry, but frankly, if that’s what you’re after then you probably shouldn’t go and see a Steven Sommers flick that’s been co-produced by Hasbro.

Let’s get this straight from the outset. This is a film designed to sell toys. Massive truckloads of them. That it manages to do so in a semi-coherent way, without completely spoiling the childhood memories of those lonely 30-somethings watching in their droves out there is nothing short of amazing. If you approach this with an agenda, then it’s an easy target, but if you’re willing to cool those brain cells off for a bit, then it’s an hour and a half of brash, fun excitement. A Saturday morning cartoon writ larger than life.

Dispensing with such pleasantries as characterisation or backstory, the film heaves us into the action from the off, an arms deal gone bad giving us a quick intro to the main characters and just enough plot to be going on with, as the villainous Baroness makes off with some NATO experimental missiles, murdering do-gooder Duke’s pals in the process and setting up a loosely-bound revenge story that allows us to meet G.I.Joe through the eyes of a newcomer.

Throughout, futuristic weapons and ludicrous martial arts showdowns abound. Female leads high-kick wearing little more than skin-tight bin-bags whilst Christopher Eccleston casts off his serious ac-tor/grumpy bugger rep, clearly reveling in his role as flamboyant, masked arms dealer MacGuffin Destro.

The plot is minimal and ridiculous, of course; a team of the finest soldiers and tacticians in the world chase down a hidden terrorist organisation, mounting a massive worldwide mobilisation on the back of what amounts to a hunch. Plot, however, is not why we’re here. We’re here to see the trillion Dollar base ‘The PITT’, the jet-packs, the lasers and the ‘accelerator suits’ -a kind of bargain basement Iron Man armour that JUST manages to look cool, despite the occasionally flabby CGI.

It would be easy to gripe at Sommer’s sense of spectacle, sacrificing story for KABOOM set pieces. Those unlucky enough to have witnessed the execrable Van Helsing will know of his love for dodgy redesigns and over the top spectacle rather than a solid story, but here that’s rather the point. In his defence, the direction manages to stay focused even during an 80mph running battle on the side of a subway train, never falling into the MTV jump-edit incoherence that so often blights big action sequences. Here you always know where you are and who’s who.

In fact, that’s a conceit that flows throughout. The characters themselves are painted in the broadest of black and white strokes, and whilst the acting may occasionally veer a little too close to the original plastic avatars than is comfortable, spouting cheesy, occasionally wince-inducing dialogue and using shouting to convey emotion – lead white hat Duke’s appearance at a funeral is brooding in a hilariously 80s way – it is at least good-natured and doesn’t try to explain itself.

Likewise, while the film does try to ground itself in a real-world ethos, it takes a gung-ho attitude to the technology, never bothering with ludicrous pop-science explanations as to their feasibility. Things just work. And while there’s some guff about stolen nano-tech weapons and Big Bad The Doctor/Cobra Commander (Joseph Gordon Lovett, clearly having the screechy-voiced time of his life) scheming to replace the President, it’s mainly a series of excuses to get us to the next fight.

Bowing to fanboy wishes has destroyed many a franchise (I’m looking at you, George Lucas), but here it stays the right side of goofy. We get a fantastic Wushu faceoff between Evil Ninja Storm Shadow and his polar opposite, Snake-Eyes, which is tons of fun and hugely impressive even if it ultimately resolves nothing. If your attention does start to wander, rest assured there’ll be a shot of Sienna Miller doing the splits soon enough.

Though it doesn’t quite have the explosive impact of this summer’s other toy-based destructothon, Transformers, G.I. Joe scores points for being fast and faithful, cramming in the right amount of nods to hardcore nerd-dom, but concentrating on its target audience: over-excited 10 year old boys with pocket money to burn. There’s a surprising lack of winking towards any accompanying parents too, with the humour generally goofy and good-natured.

An extended advert then, but a bloody good one. Rise of Cobra is exactly what the nine-year-old inner you wants from a movie. Fast, explosive fun that won’t change cinema history, but will leave you with a daft grin on your face and a strange urge to get down to Toys R Us as quickly as possible.

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