G.I. Joe: The Movie

Next up for this month, I will be looking at “G.I. Joe.” I never watched the cartoon because it was before my time, but I do remember my brother watching “G.I. Joe Extreme.” However, let’s take a look at “G.I. Joe: The Movie,” released in 1987.

Jeffrey Lyles started his review out by saying, “So I’m attempting to do what no one raised on a steady entertainment diet of 80s cartoons should bother trying — writing an unbiased review of G.I. Joe: The Movie. Maybe for an encore, I’ll give The Empire Strikes Back a shot?”

Lyles continued, “Take 1 doesn’t go too well as I realize I’m singing along with the words to the awesome opening scene. Yep. Completely unbiased…”

Animation was never the best part of the 80s cartoons, but kids weren’t concerned about that and were used to some really low-end animation and characters often not colored the right way.

However, when looking at the adrenaline-rushing opening scene, it’s obvious that Sunbow Productions put the best animation team for this film as the standard countless men of Joe green shirts in the background are actual Joes with names in here.

Another thing on the opening: Snake-Eyes jumping on a Cobra trouble bubble, throwing the pilot and flying in to pilot the plane himself may be better than anything Bond, Bourne or Batman ever did…really.

Lyles said, “Alright, I made it through the beginning after only four times rewinding, but now I’m reciting all the dialogue. How many times have I watched this movie??? I went to YouTube to find the opening as I’m writing this review. I’m weak. Don’t judge me.”

The film starts with Serpentor (Dick Gautier) yelling at his Cobra high soldiers for not defeating the G.I. Joe. Only Cobra Commander (the same voice of Starscream, Wheeljack, Sparkplug Witwicky, Reflector and Defensor on “The Transformers” cartoon and D’Compose, Tendrill and Statesman Granahue on the underrated “Inhumanoids” cartoon, Chris Latta) has the audacity to say that Serpentor hasn’t really been taking over the world with his terrorist leader plans either.

Serpentor is a failure. In the usual superior command, he blames his failures on his predecessor and as expected, Serpentor’s right-hand man gladly takes his side, even though Cobra Commander is going against these “unsubstantiated fantasies.” Lyles is right when he said, “Say what you will about the cartoon, but kids back then needed a decent education to comprehend the dialogue.”

Still, the second-in-command breaks into the Cobra base; everyone is just fine to follow Cobra Commander’s lead. Cobra just doesn’t know what he’s doing. While Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow were going all over for more than two seasons, Pythona, voiced by Jennifer Darling, have the best ninja scenes in every G.I. Joe when she breaks into Cobra forces using speed, agility and some nice alien gadgets.

She meets Serpentor and offers camaraderie, given he can get the Joe’s new device (The Broadcast Energy Transmitter) currently being tested by the Joes on some snowy mountaintops.

Scarlett, voiced by B.J. Ward, is worried the B.E.T. doesn’t waste a billion taxpayer dollars. Lyles said, “If only my tax dollars went to stuff this cool. Serpentor leads the attacks with his catchphrase ‘This I command!’ as I’m reminded that he was only slightly less annoying than Galvatron on The Transformers TV series.”

Duke, voiced by Michael Bell, gets shot on his parka’s sleeve. Lyles said, “This was a big deal as Cobra soldiers had worse aim than Stormtroopers and also provided some interesting foreshadowing from writer Ron Friedman.”

Serpentor gets captured and after failing to gather the soldiers, Cobra Commander calls for a retreat. This leadership fight is nicely handled and Friedman was either giving kids a lot of credit or was going out of his way to make Cobra Commander sympathetic.

Roadblock, voiced by Kene Holliday, leads a search party and really showing a talent for sensible team building for this snow mission brings along Dusty, the desert trooper, and Shipwreck the sailor, both voiced by Neil Ross.

Roadblock’s team gets attacked by a group of strange new enemies, Cobra-La, that scared Cobra Commander, which we see was for a good reason. Cobra-La made for some bizarre villains for the Joes.

Lyles noted, “The cartoon always allowed some measure of goofiness in a somewhat realistic slant, but this new adversary shifted the series to a decidedly more fantasy-driven tone. And their end-game of turning all of humanity into cavemen was the dumbest of all the Cobra plots we’d seen so far.”

With Roadblock’s team mission, General Hawk (Ed Gilbert) hurries up the training for the new soldiers – Tunnel Rat (Laurie Faso), Jinx (Shuko Akune), Law (Ron Ortiz), Big Lob (Brad Sanders) and Chuckles  - given they can handle their sessions with Beach Head (William Callaway).

The Joe training scene gives some of the film’s on purpose funny moments as Beach Head gets really annoyed with their performance, but eventually respects them trying.

This isn’t really the case with Lt. Falcon, voiced by Don Johnson, a clown who often misses his responsibilities to flirt with any girl, the latest who gets him in trouble with Duke and ends with Dreadnoks freeing Serpentor in another great scene.

Lyles credited, “Johnson, still riding the Miami Vice popularity wave, lent the film some credibility since it was able to lure a big star on the project.” The same can be said for the late Burgess Meredith calling on as Cobra-La head Golobulus.

Annoyed with his attitude, Hawk sends Falcon to the Slaughter House where former professional wrestler and favorite on the cartoon Sgt. Slaughter is training his three new soldiers – Mercer (Kristoffer Tabori), Red Dog (Poncie Ponce) and Taurus (Earl Boen) – to their breaking level. While training with the Renegades, Falcon begins to understand what he needs to do to be a Joe.

Like “Transformers: The Movie,” this movie fights on a larger level than the cartoon’s episodes could take and ends up much more important.

At the same time, both lost some momentum once a main character dies and is replaced by not as likable new character. (Just a note: I wasn’t sad by Optimus Prime’s death in “The Transformers: The Movie” as much as I was confused with all the deaths in that movie.)

Lyles said, “Pushing out the old to make way for the new was a common theme in the Joe/Transformers mini-series, but that strategy felt a little too contrived for the movies, especially given how the old standard-bearers are discarded.”

The last fight throws out the made rules of Cobra-La’s supremacy over Joe soldiers apparently because this time the new breed is leading the army.

All of these asides, this is fun old-school cartoon movie done right and one that even today’s more refined children would enjoy just as much as an adult remembering so much 80s nostalgia.

But what can be said about the live-action movies that came out years later? Well, let’s take a look at “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” released in 2009.

Apparently, this is what summer movies should be like. The filmmakers have inserted the coolest moments from blockbusters over the past five or six years and put them together into one insanely entertaining, completely over-the-top action thriller.

U.S. soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are leading a scary new nano-weapon when they’re attacked and then defended by two shockingly high-tech assault forces. They obviously do join the good side, the G.I. Joes, an influential team led by General Hawk, played by Dennis Quaid. These top commandos (including Rachel Nichols, Said Taghmaoui, Adewale Akkinnuoye-Agbaje and Ray Park) are tracking Duke’s ex Ana (Sienna Miller), who has gone over to the villains to help super-villain arms dealer McCullen (Christopher Eccelston) and, as Rich Cline put it in his review, “his Vader-esque evil-doctor sidekick” (Kevin J. O’Connor) with their evil plan for world domination.

Cline said, “From the prologue (in 1641 France), the film is a riot of corny dialog, wild overacting and nutty plotting. But it somehow comes together into a consistent tone, with a driving pace that propels us through each increasingly nutty set piece. It's like gadget porn with pulse-shooting guns, super-strength suits and bullet-proof armour, plus swords, explosives, missiles and good old-fashioned cat fights in the sky, sea, mountains, deserts and cities. A hyper-destructive chase through Paris is hysterical in every sense of the word.”

Cline continued, “All of this is rendered with swooping camera work, constant effects and frenetic editing. In other words, this looks like the lovechild of Tony Scott and Michael Bay. But no, it's by Mummy-man Sommers, which kind of explains why it's so much fun to watch. Everything about this film is a fantasy, and most of it is borrowed from the likes of Batman, Spider-man, Iron Man, James Bond and even Harry Potter. In this "near future", digital effects are a fact of everyday life.”

Strangely, the characters really are allowed to build beyond their action figure types. Everyone has a back-story (flashback here!) that creates the insanely difficult narrative, not to mention romantic subplots and “surprise” reveals. Everything makes this easily the summer’s best guilty-pleasure blockbuster. Don’t be surprised that it sets up a sequel because the hint is in the title.

That’s exactly what we got in 2013 with “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” If the first movie was the mindless summer blockbuster at the absolute lowest, then the given improvement of the late sequel is a great surprise. Jon M Chu’s sequel expunges high effects, appeal-free method of Stephen Sommers’ original to give more realistic set pieces that are closer to the hugely enchanted “G.I. Joe” mythology.

The story starts as the best Joes team goes into an uneven Pakistan to successfully get back some nuclear warheads, only to see they’ve been double-crossed and practically wiped out by members of the unclear Cobra organization. Surviving trio Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (DJ Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) fly back to America and team up with an original Joe (Bruce Willis) to get revenge, eventually reuniting with former partner Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and a not likely new friend.

Rob Carnevale said in his review, “Chu’s film may still be absurd but it has a knowing sense of its own limitations and a firmer grasp of its target audience.” As predicted, there’s so much explosive action, a great line of humor and some fun performances, not least from new arrivals Willis, Ray Stevenson and Johnson. Jonathan Pryce also is great as the possible villain U.S. President, while article arts experts Park and Lee Byung-hun are given more room to show off their physicality.

Carnevale ended his review by saying, “While GI Joe: Retaliation may still boast an overly indulgent running time and some ridiculous displays of gun fetishism and gung-ho patriotism, it’s a fun ride while it lasts.”

In the end, these are some nice, enjoyable films that you should watch if you grew up with the G.I. Joes. If you don’t like the live-action movies, I understand, but I think they’re still enjoyable. The animated one is definitely the best, but I still think all three are worth checking out. I have been hearing possibilities of a third live-action movie, but I don’t know when that will come into fruition. Let’s just wait and see for ourselves.

Alright everyone, check in next week when I end off “80s Cartoon Movie Month.”