G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Like so many contemporary action movie directors, Stephen Sommers is equipped with his own recognizable bag of tricks. But unlike a handful of contemporary action directors keeping the genre buoyant (Matrix creators Andy and Larry Wachowski and Batman rejuvenator Christopher Nolan all come to mind), Sommers employs such a stringent style that he fails to offer much in the way of genuine excitement. His work is singularly his own and yet such an acknowledgement is more simple observation than encouraging compliment.

Returning to the big screen after a five-year hiatus, Sommers has once again unleashed a mildly entertaining, hilariously hokey, pitifully underwhelming movie that perfectly fits into his easily categorized oeuvre. This time around, the action-based material arrives courtesy of popular 80s toy brand G.I. Joe, which has been awaiting its big-screen franchise potential for more than two decades. Well, G.I. Joe is finally here and Sommers has eagerly, awkwardly injected his own particular devices into this big-budget world of violent vehicles and gigantic explosions.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (even the title suggests optimism for franchise potential) is Sommers' first movie since his woefully misguided 2004 monster-fest Van Helsing, in which Hugh Jackman played a sporting version of the titular character facing off against a whole slew of classic movie monsters brought to life by questionable special effects. The professional break has neither helped nor hurt the director's creative abilities.

The man's knack for solid narrative pacing is still intact, but unfortunately, so is his desire to stuff every action sequence with laughably shoddy CGI. There is also the obligatory corny comedy that elicits more groans than chuckles. And the plot is based on the standard action movie escalation, starting off big and getting bigger (and dumber, too, as is the case here). Like so many past Sommers flicks, the weaknesses of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra far outweigh its strengths.

The core concept has been lightly lifted from the original material to tell the story of a covert military group (the good guys) who battle a secret organization obsessed with taking over the world (the bad guys). Both sides of good and evil boast an impressive arsenal of weapons and have technologically advanced vehicles, which makes for some very loud exchanges of gunfire and explosions.

This particular aspect of G.I. Joe is represented relatively well in the movie, since heroes and villains spend a lot of time piloting fancy jets and riding around in comfortable submarines. Several fun gadgets are used throughout the movie and the villains sport a nasty weapon that blasts devastating sound waves across a wide area. As silly as some of it may seem, these bits and pieces actually feel like they belong in the G.I. Joe world and so their inclusion in the movie is entirely acceptable.

If only the people wielding the weapons and driving the vehicles were at all interesting. Sommers has assembled a passable cast that could have resulted in a few memorable characters. But the trashy script (credited to Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett) is so completely bogged down by its reliance on goofy flashbacks and its obsession with hammy dialogue that the actors are left stranded with little to work with. When you factor in Sommers' direction and the already sparse skills of actors Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, and Rachel Nichols, you end up with a lot of characters staring at the camera wearing blank looks on their faces.

With so many stiff performers trapped in so many tight outfits, it's easy to imagine that Sommers would have had more success with the movie had he simply put the original plastic action figures on the sets and recorded some improvised voice-overs for the characters. At the very least, that move would have saved the production a bundle of money, which might have allowed the multiple effects companies that worked on the movie to produce a single impressive digital effects shot.

But this is a Stephen Sommers movie, which means that the acting has to be terrible and the digital effects have to be laughable. Certain moments in the movie look relatively decent thanks to the work of production designer Ed Verreaux, but the sloppy effects and the flat photography by Mitchell Amundsen are routinely responsible for mucking up the imagery.

While a few moments of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra manage to be acceptably fun (a destructive chase through the streets of Paris is likely to hold the audience's attention), the movie never amounts to much more than a silly bit of forgettable fluff. Most of the cast members look as though they're trying to stave off boredom as they lazily deliver their lines in a perpetual state of drowsiness.

Dennis Quaid appears as a military general and his performance feels like a ridiculous parody. Only Sienna Miller, as the villainous, gun-toting Baroness, seems to be having a great time in front of the camera. And even then, Miller is only enjoyable when her character is wreaking havoc, instead losing the spark as soon as she has to perform a lamely unconvincing dramatic scene.

Arriving at the tail end of a disappointing summer blockbuster season, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a junky action flick that is sure to please diehard Stephen Sommers fans (if such a thing exists) and will likely leave others yearning for something more. The high-tech gadgets, weapons, and vehicles have all survived the journey to the big screen, but the characters have been lost somewhere in the translation from plastic to celluloid. Welcome to the world of Stephen Sommers, where everything blows up, heroes and villains are one dimensional, and no one cares.