por Heráclito Maia

Enfim ocorre o inevitável: John Woo é comprado pelos yankees. Os fãs mais puristas chiaram, mas a verdade é que ele fez alguns filmes legais na América. E O Alvo certamente é um deles.

Baseado na obra de 1932, Zaroff, o Caçador de Vidas (The Most Dangerous Game), de Irving Pichel & Ernest B. Schoedsack, a idéia trabalhada é a de caçada humana, em que ricos pagam fortunas para perseguir e atirar em seres humanos, auxiliados por um grupo de mercenários que organizam o jogo.

Claro que quando Van Damme entra na brincadeira a situação se inverte. Inteiramente filmado em Nova Orleans (numa determinada cena os vilões comentam que já haviam realizado uma caçada no Rio de Janeiro!), nosso herói utiliza seus conhecimentos do local para pregar armadilhas (como na boa cena da cobra, desenvolvida pelo pessoal da KNB, empresa do mago em efeitos Greg Nicotero), e atrair os mercenários para dentro de um velho galpão onde eram guardados carros alegóricos de carnaval, explorados por John Woo como algo bizarro e assustador.

Se em relação aos personagens não há muita riqueza de detalhes (o mais incomum é a dupla de vilões, interpretados por Lance Henriksen e Arnold Vosloo, possivelmente gays), visualmente O Alvo é John Woo puro. Dá-lhe câmera lenta, cenas de ação filmadas em múltiplos ângulos, malabarismos com motos que desafiam as leis da gravidade, os malditos pombos branco voando pra lá e pra cá, etc.

O Alvo é um filme muito simpático, e mesmo ficando abaixo numa comparação com os antecessores de Hong Kong, não deixa de ser uma estréia digna em solo americano e talvez o melhor filme de toda a carreira do Van Damme. Um detalhe curioso é a presença de Sam Raimi na produção executiva. O criador da trilogia Evil Dead já era um grande fã de John Woo muito antes do mesmo vir pros EUA.

O que esperar de um filme baseado na coleção de figuras de ação da Hasbro, os ‘bonequinhos’ do G. I. Joe? Explosões, gente bonita, e claro, te deixar com aquela vontade de entrar na primeira loja de brinquedos e comprar um bonequinho do Storm Shadow e outro do Snake Eyes assim que a sessão terminar!

Com direção de Stephen Sommers, que é conhecido por seus filmes que entretem sem compromisso, como Van Helsing e a trilogia A Múmia. Stephen brinca com o filme como se estivesse realizando seu sonho de criança. Os atores atiram, levam tiro, saltam, caem, brigam, beijam (beijos ridículos, só pra constar), e tem flashbacks. Vários. Sofridos. Na chuva, porque não tem como fugir do clichê.

O filme começa em um futuro não muito distante. O exército transporta uma nova arma com nanorobôs que destroem tudo o que é aço e só param quando são desativados por um controle remoto. O transporte segue bem até osCobra, um grupo de vilões com armas de tecnologia e treinamento superior ao do exército, atacarem o comboio atrás das tais armas. O capitão Duke, interpretado por Channing Tatum (que já foi stripper mas sem tirar a cueca, só pra deixar claro) e seu braço direito Ripcord, Marlon Wayans, que você provavelmente conhece pelas comédias Todo Mundo em Pânico, são salvos pelos G. I. Joe, uma divisão super secreta do exército internacional de inteligência, armas, tecnologia e treinamento tão avançados quanto os Cobra. É dado o ponta pé para várias reviravoltas, explosões e muita coisa acontecer ao mesmo tempo. Lógico que para haver uma, duas ou três continuações.

Com atores conhecidos, como Arnold Vosloo, interpretando o vilão camaleão Zartan e Brendan Fraser em uma participação muito rápida comoSargento Stone. Pois é, Imhotep e Richard O’Connell em lados opostos de novo! E claro,  Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (quero assistir uma entrevista com alguém dizendo o nome dele completo!) que os fãs de Lost conhecem como Mr Eko, interpretando Heavy Duty. Das gata-garotas temos a lindaSienna Miller, interpretando Ana, a baronesa. Sienna já deu vida a Victoria em Stardust. Rachel Nichols, é Scarlett, a nerd dos Joe. Rachel já atuou no seriado Alias, de J J Abrams. Será que isso pesou na escolha da atriz para a personagem?

G. I. Joe – The Rise of The Cobra (G.I. Joe – A Origem de Cobra) é uma rentável colcha de retalhos. Há diversos personagens que permitem diversas continuações tanto em grupo como histórias fechadas com um ou dos integrantes. Particularmente quero muito que façam um filme solo do Storm Shadow. Byung-hun Lee fez o personagem todo afetado, um verdadeiroElvis assassino from Japan!

Well.

Two more days to endure of “24″ week!

DEAL WITH IT.

Today we examine the individual seasons of “24,” ranked from of course worst to best. There have been seven seasons of the show so far, but as I already ranted about my displeasure at Season Six yesterday, I’ve decided to move on and leave it off today’s list.

Rest assured though, that if it was on here…it would be last.

Dead last.

Six: Season Four.

Despite the rampant awesomeness of having the mummy as the main villain, Season Four couldn’t really live up to any of it’s expectations. Ridiculous terrorist plot after ridiculous terrorist plot kept elevating the threat to mammothly outlandish proportions. By the end, I wasn’t really sure what the hell was going on. Marwan (the mummy) while a pretty badass villain had way to many contingency/escape plans. It was just poor writing. Everytime the authorities would close in on him, ready to foil whatever act of terror he was planning to unleash, he would conveniantly escape through a back exit/staircase/trick ladder, ready to start a new, bigger, better plan.

It just got to be a bit too much.

Oh…and, also…I may be wrong on this, but I think this may be the only season of the show where a major character isn’t killed off.

Highlights: Jack’s videogame-like assault on a terrorist headquarters; the surprise re-emergence of Tony; the mummy.

Five: Season Three.

Season Three started off pretty well. In an effort to infiltrate a drug cartel, Jack got himself addicted to heroin. He also got himself a new partner, in the form of hunky Chase Edmunds. It’s usually a bad sign when a series adds a young partner like that, but Chase was surprisingly solid. He was an adequate foil for Jack, and I genuinely would have liked to see more of him.

The villains this season were an interesting affair, beginning with the delightfully charming Salazar brothers and ending with the delightfully British Stephen Saunders – who had amazing potential but was, naturally, pretty much wasted.

The season revolved around some virus with the capacity to kill the whole world or something, and CTU’s efforts to stop it. It also featured the emergence of fan favorite Chloe O’Brien, an interesting (and first of many) twist on the tired mole cliche, and Jack, as always, confronting his personal demons.

At some point Tony also got shot in the neck, but was on his feet glowering and barking orders a few hours later. He’s a trooper, that guy!

Highlights: Michelle gets tough in a hotel; Sherry dies (finally.); Chloe makes her first appearance; Jack plays a game of Russian Roulette; Jack kills Chappelle; Jack kills Nina; Jack doesn’t kill the main villain. (Actually, that was kind of lame.)

Four: Season One.

This is where it all began, seven or so odd years ago. (Which is like nineteen in the “24″ world.) We’re introduced to the greatest hero of all time, his annoying family, and the Counter Terrorist Unit – all tropes that would become, more or less, series staples until the Seventh Season.

It was at times meandering, at times inane (especially whilst covering whatever shenanigans Kim and Teri had gotten themselves into) and at times overstayed it’s welcome.

Still, it had it’s moments – including a scenery-chewing, bizarrely accented Dennis Hopper as the main villain, and the final scene.

Also, Lou Diamond Phillips showed up near the end for some reason – and that alone puts it higher on this list.

Highlights: We meet JACK BAUER; Nina was weirdly attractive; Dennis Hopper’s accent; Lou Diamond Phillips.

Three: Season Seven.

This should have been it. From the outset, Season Seven sounded like it might just be the be-all-end-all of “24″ seasons. And while it didn’t quite make it that far, it came damn close.

This is what we knew initially: for one thing, Season Seven would be the first season of “24″ to leave Los Angeles, the city that had endured terrorists wrath for six years. That was pretty big. Then, we found out that CTU was being done away with as well – in favour of the Effa Bee Eye, in Washington, D.C.

Then we got wind of the sexy new partner for Jack – the beautiful (but deadly!) Agent Renee Walker, played by the talented (but deadly!) Annie Wershing. Add to that a villain played by acadamy award winner Jon Voight, and another bad guy played by the always dependable B-movie star Tony Todd, and brotha, you got a stew going.

Then came the biggest news of all – Tony Almeida would be returning from the dead somehow as Jack’s newest adversary. Saint’s alive!

And, for good measure, it was coming off the heels of the worst season in the shows history. Not a tough act to follow.

While this all sounds epic to the max on paper, it faltered a bit in execution. It was still one of the strongest seasons of the show, with some great thrills, scenes, acting, characters and guest stars. Plus, it pretty much completely did away with the core “24″ cast (or what was left of it) and gave us dozens of new characters – the strongest of which may have been the new president in the “24″ universe, Allison Taylor played by Cherry Jones. (Jones would win an Emmy that year for her portrayal of the strong-willed Taylor.)

Good, maybe even great, but it could have been better…nitpicking, sure, but too many twists and some truly insipid character motivations didn’t help, either – like the amazing flip-flopping Almeida. Even by the end, I don’t really know if he was good, or evil, or what.

Janene Garafalo showed up this season for some reason as well. That didn’t help, either.

Highlights: Jon Voight; Jack’s fight with henchman Quinn; Senator Red Foreman; Bill’s sacrifice; Aaron Pierce and Ethan Kanin’s Hardy Boys Mysteries subplot; Renee Walker.

Two: Season Two.

Jack Bauer was a pretty broken man coming into the show’s second season. After the death of his wife, he kind of went off the rails a bit – which turned out to be entertaining as hell for the viewer.

Season Two revolved around an impending nuclear attack on Los Angeles, organized by a Middle Eastern terrorist cell – manipulated by wealthy American businessmen led by Peter Kingsley (the dude from “Saw.”)

It was one of the more intense seasons of the show, with very few useless subplots (though there may have been something with a cougar…dammit, Kim!) and some great action – including a bombing at CTU.

It also featured a heroic and dramatic sendoff for George Mason, Jack’s boss for the first few seasons. Although kind of a douche, George redeemed himself this season and became a fan favorite because of it.

Highlights: Kate Warner; Jack’s infamous running-wall-neck-snap; Michelle and Tony start getting it on; the  cougar dude from “Saw.”

One: Season Five.

Jack Bauer takes on the President of the United States of America.

Also RoboCop. And the dude from “Warlock.” And C. Thomas Howell.

It’s pretty damn awesome.

This season had it all – one of the best sets of villains I’ve ever seen on the show; some great acting from Gregory Itzin and Jean Smart as the President and his first lady; and super-human secret service agent Aaron Pierce blew up a dude wearing a flame-thrower.

SOLD.

Highlights: The shocking first episode deaths; that fat hobbit’s sacrifice; Aaron Pierce’s expanded role; Edgar’s death; Jack deploying another famous neck snap; Jack’s final shoot-out with Henderson; the Logans.

Well.

Tomorrow we close out “24 Week” with the five best moments in the show’s history.

And then I will return you to your regularly scheduled blog!

Well.

“24″ week continues with a (hopefully) quick look at some of “24’s” Greatest Villains.

Again, spoilers lie ahead…be weary, fair traveller.

Seven: Jonas Hodges, Season 7, Redemption. (Jon Voight.)

Angelina Jolie’s biological father was born to be a “24″ villain. And the man did not disappoint. Chewing the scenery with gleeful abandon every step of the way, Jon Voight proved to be a formidable opponent for Jack Bauer – and whoever else got in his way along the way. Hodges fast became one of my favorite Big Bads in the entire series, and I had high hopes on his returning in the future to antagonize Jack over and over again. Sadly, it turned out that he actually wasn’t the dude in charge, and was just another pawn in an increasingly ridiculous operation, and he exited the series…well, kind of lamely.

Too bad…he coulda ranked a helluva lot higher! Still a fun ride while it lasted, though.

Six: Habib Marwan, Season Four. (Arnold Vosloo.)

In Season Four, Jack Bauer was menaced by the Mummy. That’s right, the Mummy.

I kid you not.

Okay, so it was just the dude who played the mummy in those horrible Brendan Frasor films, but still.

The Mummy.

I have nothing else to add here.

Five: Christopher Henderson, Season Five. (Peter Weller.)

So we had the Mummy terrorizing Los Angeles in Season Four – that’s a tough act to follow. But the producers were more than up to the challenge.

They brought in RoboCop.

Christopher Henderson was once Jack’s mentor, and that’s cool – he’s basically an older, grizzleder, meaner Jack Bauer. The perfect nemesis, in other word. Not only can he predict Jack’s methods, but Jack can predict that he can predict his methods, so he realizes that his normal methods are all but useless – forcing him to find new methods, which I guess means Henderson didn’t really predict anything at all.

Still pretty badass, though.

Four: Tony Almeida, Season Seven. (Carlos Bernard.)

If Christopher Henderson is Jack in twenty years, than Tony Almeida is Jack now – which is far more lethal. Add to that the emotional element of discovering that your best friend, partner, and really the “only man you can trust” is now your adversary, and we have the makings of the ultimate “24″ villain. Or so I thought.

The writers didn’t seem to want to commit to Tony one way or the other – they wanted him to be the bad guy but didn’t seem to want him to be, you know, evil. Key element there.

So instead we got a mostly bad Tony, but a Tony who was bad for the right reasons. It turned him into a more tragic figure than an outright villain, and while I enjoyed the more complex journey he ended up taking, part of me still really wanted to see some hardcore Bauer vs. Almeida action.

Oh well…at least they didn’t kill him off this time.

Three: Mandy, Season One, Two and Four. (Mia Kirshner.)

Here’s a character that needs to return, like yesterday. While appearing in three separate seasons, Mandy has only appeared in seven episodes. Yet she still clocks in at Number Three.

That’s pretty incredible.

Mysterious, deadly, and, let’s face it, hot, Mandy has been a thorn in Jack’s side long before the two even came face-to-face. She always seems to appear at the worst possible moment, shocking the viewer and messing things up for Bauer and Co. even more. Whether she’s leaping out of exploding planes or poisoning presidents with a simple handshake, she’s generally pretty awesome. She’s still alive as well, which is a rarity for “24″ characters, let alone villains, and hasn’t shown up since Season Four.

I’d say her unique brand of havoc is long overdue.

Two: Nina Meyers, Season One, Two and Three. (Sarah Clarke.)

Of all the enemies on this list, I think it’s safe to say that Nina Meyers has had the most impact on Jack. She was kind of his arch-nemesis over the course of the first three seasons, and a seemingly unstoppable one at that. She started off as Jack’s most trusted ally and friend, and ended the day by killing his wife, Teri.

Jack was never a very good judge of character.

Nina would return in Season Two and Season Three to once again tangle with Bauer, and haunt him about his wife’s death. I’ve always said that a really solid, returning antagonist would really up the ante of the shows threat level, and Nina was perfect in the role.

And then, in the third season, Jack shot her like sixty times.

One: President Charles Logan, Season Five. (Gregory Itzin.)

When it was revealed midway through Season Five that it was the President who had been behind the events of that day, no one even questioned it. It was unexpected, it was terrifying, it…didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But we bought it. Without question. Because the writing was quality, but more importantly: because Greg Itzin, who had played Logan since his introduction in Season One, was just that good.

Logan’s characteristic bumbling and poor decision making skills had been an act – and we believed it because of Itzin’s performance. He (and Jean Smart, who played his wife Martha) were unbelievable that season, treading the fine line between duplicity and outright lying to your audience. They had great chemistry; and they both knew their characters inside and out.

But never mind the acting…the mere thought of the president, the most powerful man in the world being a terrorist was just too delicious for the writers of the show to pass up. Even if Logan’s turn to the dark side hadn’t been telegraphed from the very beginning (they say it was, but I think they’re lying) it was an intriguing premise – one that led to one of the best seasons of the show, and undoubtably, the show’s best villain.

]]> http://leontheprofessional91.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/g-i-joe-la-nascita-dei-cobra-g-i-joe-the-rise-of-cobra-2009/ Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:33:21 +0000 Matteo Dionisi http://leontheprofessional91.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/g-i-joe-la-nascita-dei-cobra-g-i-joe-the-rise-of-cobra-2009/ http://filmelemele.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/g-i-joe-the-rise-of-cobra-2009/ Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:01:24 +0000 filmelemele http://filmelemele.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/g-i-joe-the-rise-of-cobra-2009/

NOTA : 7 RECOMANDAT

Download subtitrare G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Trailer G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra :

G.I. Joe comes to the big screen as the team must take down an arms dealer who has created a bomb made of nanites that will literally eat cities until the kill switch is hit.

Directed by – Stephen Sommers

Written by – Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, Paul Lovett, Michael Gordon, Stephen Sommers

Starring – Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christopher Eccleston, Gregory Fitoussi, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Karolina Kurkova, Byung-hun Lee, Sienna Miller, Rachel Nichols, Kevin J. O’Connor, Gerald Okamura, Ray Park, Dennis Quaid, Said Taghmaoui, Channing Tatum, Arnold Vosloo, Marlon Wayans

I’m sure there’s two running opinions on this flick. I liked it for the sheer action of it. It’s packed full of explosions, car chases, shooting, fighting and over the top bases that nobody could ever build in the first place. The other camp might not like it because it probably screws with G.I. Joe history and doesn’t follow the mythology of the original series. That’s why I liked it so much, I don’t know anything about the history of G.I. Joe beyond the fact that I watched the cartoon as a kid.

The plot does get pretty convoluted at times. This person has a history with this person who’s related to this other person who’s supposed to be dead but still has a job at the local Wal-Mart and sells guns out of his shed. Or something like that. While all the connect the dots history of the characters can get annoying, I was only in this one for the action and that’s exactly what I got.

The Baroness. The hottest girl to knock you out in years!

I don’t think I would even bother trying to go into the plot at this point. While it’s pretty obvious what’s going on, there’s so much of it that you can get lost. Better to just stick to watching things go boom, and man, do things go boom alot. The action is well done and fits the G.I. Joe theme with giant bases and huge battles. I mean, who really has the money to build a giant underwater city! Of course it’s in there anyway, just like I would expect from a G.I. Joe movie.

While I did really enjoy it, there were some things that bothered me. I didn’t like the way Cobra Commander looked. I love the classic Cobra Commander and his look in the movie wasn’t even close to this. I was assured by a friend that he actually did look this way at one point in the history of G.I. Joe but I can’t remember it and I wish they had chosen a look that the general public would recognize more. Either that or everyone else knows it and I didn’t, that could be the case! I was also bothered by the fact that Snake Eyes suit had a mouth on it. The guy doesn’t talk, why does his suit have a mouth on it. And it looked really odd. Here’s this tight fitting mask that is so tight it’s hugging his lips and saying hello to them. I know, it’s a small thing but it was distracting every time I saw it. I’m weird like that.

The Joe team gets ready for action, in black leather of course.

Overall this movie delivers on the promise of over the top action and that’s all that I wanted from it. I certainly enjoyed it more than I thought I would and I can see how it fits into the popcorn action blockbuster section. I mean, it’s G.I. Joe right, did we really think it would be anything else?

Under the marquee – Will

D+

When I was growing up, I had a lot of different toys that I played with and a lot of different cartoons that I watched.  I loved the Justice League of America, Transformers, the A-Team, and countless other little “teams” of soldier type characters that battled evil every Saturday.  But I loved none as much as G.I. Joe, the real American hero, who battled the evil Cobra all across the globe in a never ending fight for freedom.  I bought hundreds of the toys, made gigantic fortresses out of bricks and constantly had my Joe’s waging war against the enemy.

So as an adult, when I heard that they were making a live action film of my favorite childhood toy, my interest was immediately piqued.  After all, G.I. Joe had the potential to be a great summer action franchise…plenty of interesting characters, weaponry, and several very cool villains.  Alas…when making anything into a movie, be it a comic book, a child’s toy, or an old Saturday morning cartoon, there a few indispensable elements that Hollywood seems to have a hard time putting into movies these days.  They are called plot and dialogue, and they are both absent in this big screen bust.  Seriously…this is a terrible movie.  I mean, really bad.  Hasbro, the maker of the G.I. Joe toys, had already jaded our summer movie excitement by screwing up the second installment of Transformers 2.  But things get even uglier with this second perversion of a beloved toy franchise.

Ok, so the good news is that if you expect this movie to be bad going in, you can still have fun.  I think the producers and director, Stephen Sommers (The Mummy franchise) KNEW this was a bad movie and so didn’t try to hard to make it fit within the confines of any reality.  I suspected once I saw the first trailer this movie was going to be a stinker, and my suspicions continued to be reinforced right up until the time I sat down to watch it.  It met all my exceedingly low expectations.  That said, I was still entertained, even if a few brain cells were destroyed in the process.  You can’t help but feel dumber for having seen this, but it’s ok…you’ll have a good time anyway.

The Story…Or What Resembles One

The story starts with a flashback to 17th century France, where an arms merchant named McMullen is being sentenced for selling arms to France’s enemies.  Before he undergoes his punishment (an iron mask ala Alexandre Dumas) he says that his descendants will continue the business of selling arms and become more powerful, yada yada yada.  Fast forward to the future, and you see one of his descendants announcing the creation of a new weapon called nanomites, some kind of nanotechnology that can eat through anything.  McMullen has had his research funded by NATO, and they are transporting it somewhere or another, but in the meantime he is secretly plotting to hijack the transport team and steal the nanomites for his own motives.  He sends one of his best operatives, a stunning and vicious woman known as the Baroness (Sienna Miller) to get the nanomites.  The Baroness encounters stiff resistance from two members of the transport team, Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) who are then joined by secret operatives who prevent the theft of the nanomites.  The operatives turn out to be G.I. Joe [led by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid)], a top secret global team that works against…well, I don’t know what, exactly, since there doesn’t seem to be any Cobra, at least not yet.  Anyway, they take possession of the nanomites, and Duke and Ripcord join the team.  Shortly thereafter, however, McMullen uses the Baroness, accompanied by a ninja named Storm Shadow and a master of disguise named Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) to infiltrate the Joes base and steal the nanomites.

It should be noted that this unfolding storyline is punctuated by flashbacks revealing several backstories that we just couldn’t live without.  First is the connection between Duke and the Baroness…turns out that at one time they were engaged to be married, and the Baroness was a nice little blonde who loved her man.  But due to an unfortunate (and I might add, completely predictable) turn of events, Duke sees her brother die in combat, feels responsible, and can’t face her again.  So she becomes the evil Baroness, a lieutenant to McMullen and his top scientist, a sinister looking guy with a mask over his face and a penchant for playing with cobra’s (hmmm…wonder who HE is going to become?).  Anyway, the other backstory is the one between G.I. Joe ninja Snake Eyes and the evil ninja Storm Shadow.  Apparently they were raised in the same dojo/monastery/whatever, and have always hated each other.  Storm Shadow kills their sensei/poobah/whatever, causing Snake Eyes to seek revenge.  As you can probably tell, the backstories are pretty cliched and you know where all this is heading, but like a bad train wreck, you can’t turn your head away.

So McMullen’s operatives finally get ahold of the nanomites, and he decides to unleash them on Paris as payback for what France did to his long dead ancestor.  And it’s up to the Joes to stop him.  In the process, the Joes cause more destruction to Paris than a thousand warheads equipped with nanomites ever could.  They cause massive traffic accidents, tear through buildings, smash everything within a 10 mile radius, and still are unable to stop the villains from bringing down the Eiffel Tower.   And oh yeah, the McMullen crew manages to capture Duke.  And they still  have more nanomites to foist on the rest of the world.  So the Joes must travel to McMullen’s secret base in the Arctic, to rescue their friend and stop the destruction that is being prepared to be unleashed across the globe.

Defying Logic AND Physics

Well, I’ve already mentioned a few problems that the movie has, but the complete list is so expansive, it’s hard to know where to begin.  Let’s start with the story.  It’s hard to imagine a story that has more plot holes or makes less sense.  The story starts with McMullen stealing nanomites that he created….why would he need to turn them over to NATO to begin with, only to have to steal them back?  Why didn’t he just keep them in the first place?  There are several “why did they need to do that” moments in the movie…like Zartan, the master of disguise, escapes from the G. I. Joe base…and then kills an Arab and steals his clothing in the middle of the desert.  Huh?  You’ve already made your escape…why do you need a disguise now?  Speaking of bases, both bases are supposed to be top secret, nearly impenetrable fortresses, yet they are accessed so easily that it brings you to believe a child with a broken pop gun and a pet hamster could break in, no problem.  Seriously, if you have an underground base in the Saraha, wouldn’t you put a few landmines around it so that enemies with giant drill like transportation devices couldn’t just waltz in and burn down your crib?

Of course, the real icing on the cake comes during the battle royale, when the baddies and the Joes are squaring off at the baddies base beneath  the Arctic ice in a vicious winner-takes-all brawl.   McMullen decides that the best way to take down the Joes is to blow the ice above the base and allow it to sink, crushing the base and everyone in or around it.  Of course, if one stops and thinks this plan through, you’ll realize that in order for it to work, ice would have to defy the laws of physics.  I mean, if icebergs sank, the Titanic wouldn’t have had a thing to worry about.  But in Joe world, up is down and down is up, and the best way for villains to kill heroes is to drown them by way of sinking ice.

Plot holes and physics defying lunacy are far from the only problem in this clunker.  The dialogue is the worst part.  McMullen’s ancestor screams for help as the iron mask is attached to his face, but a more hideous form of torture would be forcing him to read the G.I. Joe screen play a hundred times.  The dialogue in this movie makes a Michael Dudikoff film look like a TCM classic by comparison.  Lines like “You were almost killed, you have a right to be concerned” and “When all else fails, we don’t” abound.  In the final showdown between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, Storm Shadow says, “When our master was killed, you took a vow of silence.  Now you will die without a word.”  Or something like that.  In addition to being a horrible piece of dialogue, it’s also like a randomly thrown in fact…nowhere else in the whole movie is it explained why Snake Eyes doesn’t talk. As for other characters, Ripcord and Duke have an argument early on about his ability to pilot planes (even though he is not in the Air Force) and wouldn’t ya know it, at the end of the movie he is forced to pilot an advanced fighter jet created by McMullen, in an effort to bring down warheads armed with the nanomites.  Of course, the firing mechanism on the fighter is voice activated, so instead of pressing a button to fire a missile, you actually have to say the word “Fire!”  But wait!  There is a twist.  This is McMullen’s creation, and he’s Scottish, so you have to say the word “Fire” in GAELIC.  I kid you not.  I chortle as I write this at the sheer incomprehensibility of this plot device.  Luckily for Ripcord, one of the Joes just happens to know a bit of Gaelic (I guess…maybe they have a translating earpiece or something) and so is able to tell him how to operate the weapons system.  Again, this is another example of McMullen defying logic and doing something that makes absolutely no sense.  The best example of hilariously horrible dialogue, however, is after the destruction of Paris and the Eiffel Tower, when the the U.S. President is told that the “French are upset.”  The only thing that could have made that any better was the French threatening to write a very very bad letter.

Elsewhere, the bad guys murmur original and sophisticated last rite pronouncements such as “Now you die.”  Nice…haven’t heard that a thousand times before.  And of course, as the curtain is drawn on the major baddies, they tell us “This has only just begun.”  Really?  In this movie they steal their own weapons and try to make ice sink, so I don’t think the world has much to fear from them.  Of course, they could secretly be geniuses using the Joes to carry out their dirty work.  The nanomites are supposed to be their advanced weaponry, but the Joes are the ones who cause the real damage.  I refer to their complete destruction of Paris, although to be fair, the baddies have an SUV equipped with a fork lift that tosses cars like they were whiffle balls.  They have all this advanced sophisticated weaponry, yet Snake Eyes is able to use his sword to slice through the top of their SUV like it’s a can of soup.  Memo to Cobra…when making suits that repel everything from submachine guns to bazookas, you might want to check that it’s able to repel more primitive weaponry.  Had the Joes all carried pikes, maces, and longswords, this movie might have been an hour shorter.

The performances are, for the most part, absolutely atrocious.  That’s not to say some of them aren’t fun to watch…Arnold Vosloo may be campy, but he always is fun in the roles he plays.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a certain flair as the enigmatic and mysterious Doctor (AKA Cobra Commander).  Sienna Miller cavorts around in a leather catsuit most of the movie, and she brings a lot of energy to her role as cunning vicious vixen.  All that aside though, the acting is just terrible.  At the top of the list are the two heroes, Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans as Duke and Ripcord, respectively.  Tatum spends half the movie glowering and is never fun when he’s onscreen, which is not good considering that having fun with these one dimensional characters is all that can redeem them.  Wayans is a bit more full of life, but he becomes the latest addition to a long list of worst comedic sidekicks ever to appear in film, joining Jar-Jar Binks, Mudflap and Skids, and Bumpo from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  He’s just not funny.  Dennis Quaid phones it in as Hawk.  Christopher Eccleston tries hard, but in the end he’s left with a script that makes him nothing less than the dumbest super-villain on the planet.

So what’s to like?  Well, as I said at the beginning, the movie knows it is bad, and most of the cast seems to know it too, so they play up their campy roles and act like they enjoy themselves, especially, as I mentioned, the villains.  Even if some of his dialogue was terrible, I enjoyed the character of Storm Shadow.  Byung-hun Lee, the actor who portrayed him, I thought showed some promise if he were placed in a more serious movie.   It was also probably a good idea to make Sienna Miller a major part of this movie.  In addition to looking good, she brought a lot of energy to the screen in spite of the fact that she had to share a good bit of it with the stiff and lifeless Tatum.

Some of the action sequences are cool, if a bit over the top.  Everyone has weaponry that is less realistic than the stuff you’d find in a Bond movie, but it was fun to watch nonetheless.  Pistols that send people flying farther than the Starship Enterprise, jet packs that are easily controllable, armor that’s virtually indestructible (against modern weapons), and all sorts of other gadgets and gizmos that were quite a pleasure to observe.  Also, there were several martial arts scenes that I thought were fun, usually involving Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

The bottom line is that no matter which way you cut it, this movie is atrociously bad but deliciously fun.  Go in with the same amount of expectations you might have for Saturday reruns of Dora the Explorer, and you should come out having had a good time anyway.  That said, no amount of fun can erase the fact that practically nothing about this movie makes any kind of sense.  The best decision the studio made was to keep critics from having an early look at it.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is exactly the kind of forgettable, mindless, action-packed, CGI-overdone, fun, summer movie worth its popcorn Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen should have been.

It waste no time on tickling your ADD-brain with big explosions, gadgetry and fight scenes, pausing here and there only to give you a bit of background info on its characters via flashbacks and explain why everyone is so emotionally messed up, ’cause you know you have to be emotionally messed up to want to be doing any of the silly things these characters do in the name of bringint toys/cartoon to the big screen.

As a fan of the Cobra Commander, I was really looking forward to this look, instead it was changed for the movie because it apparently reminded the crew of the ku klux klan. Pitty.

This of course isn’t about acting or who got miscast but about who can have the more fun with their characters, in that regard: Marlon Wayans as Ripcord, Sienna Miller as the Baroness (all strutting-boobs first and walking dominatrix fantasy), and Joseph-Gordon-Levitt as the Doc/Cobra Commander are the winners, and Channing Tatum as Duke is the loser.  Channing just doesn’t seem to know how to relax or walk a comfortable line between the goofiness of it all and the supposedly emotional baggage of its character, he’s just not convincing.  Not bad, just not good enough for the part.  Maybe the fact that he at first turned down the role because he just didn’t care to be involved with this type of movies, just kept him from fully embracing his character.  Dennis Quaid as Hawk is completely under-used and therefore pointless really, just as Arnold Vosloo’s Zartan is way too cartoonish.

Christopher Eccleston as James McCullen/Destro doesn’t really bring much to his evil role other than a Irish accent, Lee Byung-Hun isn’t so much evil as just this angry, resentful child who has some major beef with Ray Park’s Snake Eyes and they spent the whole movie kicking each other butts and its fun to see them go at it.  Rachel Nichols as Scarlett plays another brainy yet can’t help herself being a sexy, kick-butt female character, though her catfight with the Baroness does exactly what you expected it to do (you don’t really need me to spell it out do you?).  Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s Heavy Duty isn’t given much one on one fight time, which is a pitty because such a commanding figure should have been allow at least one big fight scene with someone, though he does gets to blow up some shit, and a funny thing is that his British accents kept cutting off and switching to plain ol’ American, which I thought it was funny.  Another funny thing was the Cobra henchmen that were supposed to be basically zombies impervious to any type of pain and yet, every time one of them got killed or blow away and smacked against something, they would always moan in pain or scream or grunt; so much for not *feeling* any pain.

Ray Park (Snake Eyes) complained that this custome was a pain to be in but you gotta admit: it is the coolest in the whole movie

The plot, completely ridiculous, at least is coherent enough that it can be follow and the movie doesn’t have any holes, flaws yes, but it is consistent and sticks to its purpose in ways that other Hasbro summer film couldn’t even bring itself to.  It is also childish without being crude and sexy without being sexist and it doesn’t for one second, insults your intelligence even if the dialogue doesn’t aspire to be food for thought in any sort of way.  It knows what it is and plays to its strengths with pride, making it a very enjoyable two hours of non-stop action.

So are we to see Hasbro as the new Marvel? Will they be announcing their very own movie production division too?  Will world domination be next? and if so, will Marvel be the good guys or the bad guys?  Not enough summer weeks left to answer all those questions.  Grade: B

G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
PG-13
Directed by: Stephen Sommers
Written by: Stuart Beattie,David Elliot
Starring: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Byung-hun Lee, Sienna Miller, Rachel Nichols,
Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Dennis Quaid, Saïd Taghmaoui, Arnold Vosloo
Runtime: 118mins

So I’ve stated before, I was not expecting much from this movie.  I had pretty low expectations and this movie exceeded them…and not in a good way.  Yo, Joe, your movie sucked!

Where to begin…

I think the thing that pissed me off the most was the horrible dialogue.  Line after line of clichéd jokes, cheesy encouragment, and forced homage to the original cartoon was just too much for me.  It was like Terminator 4 all over again.  Though this time, instead of just assualting my ears, they flipped an already established universe upside down.  They changed the story of the G.I. JOE force and of Duke, Baroness and Ripcord.  They also rearranged the relationships.  The force is no longer American; it is international.  There’s no love triangle between Duke, Snake Eyes and Scarlett.  Instead, Duke and Baronness have some sort of prior romantic history (ah, that explains why she’s no longer Russian) and Scarlett and Ripcord have “an attraction”.  And as for who Cobra Commander is and how McCullen/Destro becomes involved with him…well, I won’t spoil that for you.  All I can say is, REALLY!?!?!  *facepalm*

It didn’t help that the acting was mediocre for the most part.  I do give the actors the benefit of the doubt since they had such a poor script to work with but oh man.  There was a particular scene between Ripcord and Scarlett where Marlon Wayans and Rachel Nichols sounded like they were forcing the emotion, the dialogue, everything…it was like watching a kid swallow cod liver oil or something like that.  Dennis Quaid, who usually does a great job seemed to lack any interest or enthusiasm in the role.  I didn’t like the way he played General Hawk; Hawk is supposed to be gruff but, as one friend put it, Quaid played him too happy.  And his line of “knowing is half the battle”?  Writers, I appreciate you trying to honor the original cartoon but STOP. FORCING. THE. ISSUE.  Marlon Wayans as Ripcord was okay; he was his usual slapstick smartass comedy relief.  Channing Tatum was actually decent as Duke, well this version of it.  I have to give kudos to Sienna Miller as Baronness.  She was bitchy through and through (though I wonder if this was considered a stretch assignment for her).

Even the action and CG in the movie were questionable at times.  I get that you want to give a movie some cool action sequences and have the audience think “Okay, that was awesome!”  Transformers had that.  G.I. JOE had “Oh, come on…really?  That’s just…no.” scenes.  Too over the top and the whole “Let’s slow things down cuz it’ll look more awesome!” technique was abused.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love action and big Baysplosions but at some point in this movie, you get the feeling that they aren’t doing these shots because it fits and makes sense; they’re doing it just cuz they can.  The animation for the Sigma-6 suits looked shoddy, paticularly when running.  The pace didn’t match the amount of ground covered, I thought.  And why even introduce Sigma-6 suits when you’re not going to be using them consistently!?!?!?  The whole chase scene thru the streets of Paris had me sitting in my seat, annoyed cuz it was just ridiculous and not in an entertaining way.  The longer it went on, the more I wanted to join my husband in the popcorn line.  Yup, the man who pretty much loves any movie got up and left to get popcorn cuz he didn’t think he would miss anything by doing so.  And he didn’t.

And speaking of the action, HELLO Star Wars references!  This movie either was paying homage to Star Wars (why?) or stole a lot from it.  There was an underwater battle where the JOEs were using submersibles to attack a base and all I could see were X-wings trying to take out the Death Star.  The base even had a super giant pulse cannon that the JOEs needed to take out otherwise their mother-sub would be sunk.  Yeah…

The end set up for a sequel (optimistic, aren’t we?) and finally reveals Cobra Commander.  Let’s just say that it was bad.  Particulary the look of Cobra Commander.  Remember in the cartoon how he had a helmet and hood?  Well, apparently, the word is that the writers/directors thought the hood was too KKK (um…but wouldn’t that help -ENHANCE- his villiany?) so they gave him a mask instead.  Okay.  Fine.  I would have been okay with that if the mask had been cool looking and maybe related to oh..I dunno..COBRA?  You’d think that the leader of a criminal organization who has an admiration for cobras and names his syndicate after the animal would have a mask fashioned that would somehow incorporate the look of the creature?  But noooooo.  He gets some weird plastic-y looking thing.  Wow.  I think he would have been better off donning a Pharoah’s hat instead.  At least that has a cobra on it!

The end also sort of wraps up the Duke/Baroness storyline and oh gawd…talk about straying from the G.I. JOE universe.  *beats head against wall*  Actually, I should beat the writers’ heads against the wall.

I could keep going but then we’d be venturing into heavy spoiler territory.

There’s very little worth watching in this movie, especially for the price of a ticket these days.  I’m not sure it’s even worth a rental unless you are doing a bad movie night.

It doesn’t surprise me there are people out there who like G.I. Joe. Not to be negative, but people are, by and large, not very intelligent. What surprises me is anyone who thought they were making a competent action picture. You’d think the success of Van Helsing would keep Sommers away from franchises or potential franchises, but Paramount’s apparently desperate.

I’m trying to think if there’s anything good about G.I. Joe. It does use a T.Rex song to some good effect, but it’s apparently a remix. The original portions of the song are good. Marlon Wayans, though he’s vomiting out some horrendous dialogue, is all right. Christopher Eccleston gives the least bad bad performance.

As for the bad performances–Channing Tatum is awful. I hope he’s never in anything I see again. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s presence is inexplicable and, as much as I love him, certainly doesn’t suggest he’s going to be making very many good movies in the future. Sienna Miller is bad but not awful–Rachel Nichols is much, much worse, for example.

The foreign actors–Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and poor Saïd Taghmaoui–are terrible.

For a supposedly apolitical film, the French take a lot of hits. Mostly, it’s just Sommers regurgitating other films–Iron Man, Blackhawk Down, Star Wars–only with crappy CG again and poorly done action sequences.

The toy commercials had better action and better writing. Probably better acting too.

Wait, Arnold Vosloo is all right.

I didn’t even mention the music.

CREDITS

Directed by Stephen Sommers; screenplay by Stuart Beattie, David Elliot and Paul Lovett, based on a story by Michael Gordon, Beattie and Somers; director of photography, Mitchell Amundsen; edited by Bob Ducsay and Jim May; music by Alan Silvestri; production designer, Ed Verreaux; produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Ducsay and Sommers; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Heavy Duty), Christopher Eccleston (McCullen), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Rex), Byung-hun Lee (Storm Shadow), Sienna Miller (Ana), Rachel Nichols (Scarlett), Kevin J. O’Connor (Dr. Mindbender), Ray Park (Snake Eyes), Dennis Quaid (General Hawk), Saïd Taghmaoui (Breaker), Channing Tatum (Duke), Arnold Vosloo (Zartan), Marlon Wayans (Ripcord) and Jonathan Pryce as the President of the United States.

This film will inevitably be compared to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen– the explosions are plentiful, the monuments are destroyed, the gadgets are on display, and the characterization is limited. However, while Transformers’ terrific special effects got bogged down by the films’ seriousness, this movie’s cheesy special effects are elevated by the film’s sense of fun. This is the type of film where a shootout is taking place in an empty room, save two barrels… so when the bad guys get shot and their bodies are blown backwards, guess where they land? If a detail like this bothers you because it’s corny and lame, then stay away. However, if this is the type of film where you can imagine yourself grinning shamelessly with a big bag of popcorn, enjoying everything that “serious-minded cinemagoers” will deem corny and lame, then this movie is a breath of fresh air for you in the midst of consecutive summers of serious action films in desperate need of editing. GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra is non-stop popcorn bliss.

We open with a title card that says, “France, 1641.” (If the fact that the film based on toy soldiers opens this way doesn’t already has you smiling, prepare for 100 minutes of smiles.) We see a ranting Scotsman named McCullen vowing vengeance on the world via his future generations who has a metal mask welded to his face. This helps us in the audience, even those completely unfamiliar with GI Joe, gather two key facts: 1) The next Scottish person we see will be a villain. 2) At some point, he will have a metal mask on. The next scene shows us Scottish weapons designer McCullen (Christopher Eccleston, known to sci-fi heads as Dr. Who), who has enlisted Army soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) to lead a team protecting the transport of warheads filled with nanomites, robotic bugs that eat everything in its path and don’t stop until deactivated. The Baroness (Sienna Miller), known for her skintight leather outfits, and Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee), known for his white samurai outfits, attempt to steal these warheads, but a team of special forces stops them.

We are then introduced to the GI Joes in their insanely enormous underground lair, called The Pit. We are also introduced to McCullen and his evil plot, in his insanely enormous underwater lair. Unless you have an insanely enormous hidden lair, you simply can’t keep up in the international wargame biz. The Joes are mostly humorless, so the swagger of Duke and the wisecracks of Ripcord throw a wrench into their works, especially Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), who hates Ripcord so that later she can fall in love with him. The villains use nanomites to control henchmen, make them fearless, and reject injury from hurting their body. This is shown by a crony reaching his hand into a box with a king cobra in it, getting bitten on the arm, and then watching the venom slowly ooze backwards out of the wound. If you’re going to be sticking your arms into cobra boxes, nanomites sure would come in handy.

Is that the cobra of the title? No, it’s a cobra owned by The Doctor, who we can deduce will be the Cobra who Rises. We can also deduce that he’s being played by a heavily made-up Joseph Gordon-Levitt. How do we know this? Because Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a well-known actor playing a very small part earlier in the film, as the Baroness’s brother and the friend of Duke. Duke also has a past romance with the Baroness, which will clearly come into play when she has a conflicted moment where she can stay committed to a life of villainy or save her former love’s life.

I’m not spoiling anything here. The plot isn’t where the fun lies. The fun is in the gadgetry, the earnest performances of actors having fun chewing into their lines, and the action scenes which are skillfully directed. Sommers lets the camera follow the actors (or their CGI replicas), not succumbing to the rapid cutting that is a staple in so many other action films. There wasn’t a single performance that I didn’t like in this film, from Dennis Quaid stoically barking every line as General Hawk, to Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko from TV’s Lost) as the cool British Joe named Heavy Duty, to Saïd Taghmaoui as Breaker, the sincere technology expert. Sienna Miller seems especially suited to this genre (despite expressing a distaste for it in recent interviews)– she plays the Baroness as a high-class villainess, who shoots a machine gun to clear people out of a room, yet still takes the time to tell an exiting lady, “Nice shoes.” Sommers photographs her form-fitting outfits lovingly.

My favorite characters were Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes (Ray Park). Snake Eyes never reveals his face and never speaks, which makes him immediately more intriguing than any of the other characters. When he first encounters his evil counterpart, Storm Shadow greets him, “Hello, brother.” They share a deep understanding of one another– at least, as deep as any kung fu adversaries do. They reveal flashbacks to their childhood. At one point, Snake Eyes stops pursuing the bad guys’ van. The Baroness: “Looks like he gave up.” Storm Shadow’s face turns to immediate panic. “He never gives up.” The van immediately gets hit by an oncoming train, explodes, and does superfluous barrel rolls. My favorite line of dialogue in the whole film is Storm Shadow’s final line to Snake Eyes during their final epic swordfight. I wouldn’t dare spoil it here– plot twists in this film are a dime a dozen, but the fun cheesy lines that the actors have fun with are treasures.

Fans of The Mummy will note three appearances by Stephen Sommers favorites. Brendan Fraser plays a commander in the GI Joe camp, and it’s not a Cannonball Run-esque reveal, “Oh my God, it’s movie star Brendan Fraser!” He actually plays a supporting role, and has a funny line or two. Arnold Vosloo, who played the villainous Imhotep, is Zartan, the master of disguise, who is especially vicious and loves whistling “The Bear Went Over The Mountain” as he commits foul deeds of villainy (shadows of Peter Lorre in M?). Finally, in a short scene, Kevin J. O’Connor, hilarious as Benny in The Mummy and Igor in Van Helsing (and deeply moving as Daniel’s “brother” in There Will Be Blood), is the nefarious Dr. Mindbender, who will hopefully play a larger role in the sequel.

Frankly, I hope there is a sequel. There are few films that I can say give me unrestrained B-movie pleasure, and this delivers. There are some action sequences, especially a chase through Paris using some nifty acceleration suits, that deliver the pulpy goods. The only guilt I feel after seeing a movie like this is that I can only give it two and a half kernels– it’s not *quite* as good as The Mummy (which was funnier and more of a love letter to its genre), and some of the special effects are Sci-Fi Channel quality, so putting it at three kernels would be letting my grin do the reviewing and not my brain. Many of you will likely hate it. The fact that movies like this get openings of 4,000 screens while much of America still hasn’t seen Moon or The Hurt Locker is depressing. This film is short on witty dialogue, character development, and true tension. But as far as mindless summer action films go (and let’s face it, sometimes those too can deliver pleasure), GI Joe rises to near the top of the list.

Im Fernsehen gibt es keine Endgültigkeit. Das gilt für Sendungen, sprich Fernsehserien, die selbst wenn sie denn inhatlich angeblich enden sollten, in Wiederholungen, Spin-offs usw. weiter in unserem kollektiven Gedächtnis verweilen. Das gilt für pseudo- und faktisch dokumentarische Sendungen, die eben keinen roten Faden brauchen und sowohl das Alpha und das Omega sind, ohne Anfang oder Ende, sozusagen. Ausserdem ist das Fernsehen bekanntermassen der Ort auf der Welt, man sagt nahe dem Äquator, an dem ehemals erfolgreiche oder wenigstens bekannte Schauspieler sich auf ihre Rente vorbereiten können, mit jährlich weniger werdenden Fingerübungen ihrer ehemals kongenialen Schauspielkunst, die perpektivisch zu Jahrmarkttricks verkommen.
Aber das hier ist keine Hexenjagd, es geht im Kern um das Gute im Fernsehen, den weichen aber dennoch knusprigen Kern.
Es geht in der Einleitung um die zweite Chance die im Fernsehen serviert wird. Und dieses Prinzip der medialen Vergebung und Nächstenliebe will ich angewandt sehen bei dem Film “G.I. Joe – Geheimauftrag Cobra”
Trailer:        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdvMpL4wtMg

Es muss klar sein, nach dem tief-in-sich-gehen-dort-eine-Runde-drehen-und-sich-klar-machen, dass es sich um ein banales Machwerk der allseits bekannten Traumfabrik. Das ist nichts schlechtes, denn an anderer Stelle lasse ich mich gerne hinreissen zu sagen, dass der reine Unterhaltungsfilm im Allgemeinen nicht nur unterschätzt wird, sondern ungerecht behandelt wird. Aber sei es drum, es geht um den neuesten Film von Stephen Sommers, der uns Perlen wie “Die Mumie” und “Die Mumie kehrt zurück” unter den Weihnachtsbaum legte. Lustigerweise gehören eben diese zur eben gepriesenen Genremutation. Noch schöner ist aber, das Hauptdarsteller, sowie Antagonist (lies: Mumie) Brendan Fraser und Arnold Vosloo nun auch in G.I.Joe auftreten. Doch während Frasers Auftritt eher ein Cameo ist, spielt Vosloo eine genauso überzeugende wie wichtige Rolle. Und da sist noch ein weiterer Grund ein warmes Gefühl im Bauch für den Film zu haben: der/die Bösewichte sind fabelhaft und erstaunlich böse, bis angenehm weltherrschaftscharmant (gilt besonders für Vosloo). Die Bösewichte? Ja es gibt eine Handvoll, und ihre Beziehungen untereinander sind gar schakespeareesk, auch ihre späteren Wandlungen wollen nichts anderes als ein wohliges Rotieren in unseren verklebeten Nervenbahnen. Denn da ist noch Joseph Gordon-Levitt, den ich legitim und ganz objektiv für den besten Schauspieler der Welt. Sein Glück ist ja das die Welt, der Schauspieler nicht nur geozentrisch ist sondern auch zutiefst zweidimensional. Aber das tut seiner Bösewichtleistung keinen Abbruch, denn man darf da snicht unterbewerten, denn auch ein Gary Oldman spielte  sich einst in mein Herz, indem er umbrachte, fies schaute und noch mehr umbrachte.
Levitt allerdings hält sich zurück, er ist der klassische verunglückte Wissenschaftler, entstellt, gestört, grössenwahnsinnig und schön irre. Aber so viel sei verraten, seine grosse Stunde schlägt noch.

Ja da sind auch noch andere Schauspieler…Wer ist eigentlich Channing Tatum? Und wer will Sienna Miller noch sehen? Man kennt ihr Repertoire, es besteht zum grossen Teil aus dem zeigen ihrer Brüste in “Alfie”. Und ein Wayansbruder, ja das ist seien Bezeichnung und sein Berufsbild.
Bleibt noch Dennis Quaid, der ein Abziehbild des bissigen Generals ist, dem man auch vorwerfen könnte er würde das Krieg führen verherrlichen durch das Aufwerten von pathos über Pazifismus und, Achtung!, Logik. Aber as ist auch nicht schlimm, weil es einen Nutzen hat, nicht mehr, nicht weniger.
Ja die sind halt da, schiessen und interessieren leidlich. Egal.

Warum also ansehen? Weil er insich einfach ein gut konzipierter Actionfilm ist und sich nicht für mehr halten will, in keiner Einstellung. Und weil er eine fremde Welt vorgaukelt. Amstatt uns wieder aufzuzeigen wie verkorkst unsere ist. Aber das ist die Strasse des Biedermaier, deswegen weise ich am Ende noch einmal auf Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Arnold Vosloo und den kleinen Brendan Fraser hin. Schön anzusehen.

Ab ins Kino!

Era pra eu ter assistido a UP – Altas Aventuras. Me lembrem de nunca mais ir ao cinema em dia de feriado. O único cinema da cidade… Aí já viu, né?! Filas gigantescas. Bem… Não posso reclamar muito do filme que eu assisti. O ingresso foi grátis! Compraram e me deram de “presente” ;D

Vi minha infância diante dos meus olhos. Que Max Steel que nada! No meu tempo, os bonecos tinhas armas de verdade… Metralhadoras, pistolas, facas (de plástico)! A grande jogada de G.I. JOE- A Origem de Cobra foi fazer uma ambientação meio futurística, até para poder dar uma “explicada” ao que se refere o tema ‘material bélico’. Ah… Só pra constar, nasci em 1986. Fui ter meu primeiro boneco Falcon (ou Comandos em Ação, como você preferir) lá pelos idos de 1992/93. Em 1995 eles pararam de ser fabricados/importados pela Estrela.

A sinopse do filme é a seguinte: o maior fabricante de armas do mundo tem que entregar um superdesenvolvido armamento à OTAN. Entretanto, durante o translado dessa arma, o comboio militar que faz sua segurança é atacado. Graças aos JOE, a superarma não é roubada. Somente dois sobreviventes restam desse comboio e eles são convidados a integrar a equipe JOE. Em uma segunda investida, essa arma é roubada. Agora os JOE têm que descobrir quem a roubou, tentar capturá-la de volta e pôr os bandidos atrás das grades.

Parece uma simples caça ao bandido, né?! Mas não é. Não é quando se envolve uma organização militar secreta internacional, armas superhipermega futurísticas, artes marciais, paisagens bonitas (montanhas no Quirguistão, Paris, o Ártico e as grandes dunas do Saara egípcio foram as “locações”) e  atores que dão conta do recado. Claro que a história é super previsível, mas não chega a ser algo clichê. Tem até erro de continuidade de cena. Entretanto, o que se vê na tela é puro entretenimento.

A Paramount, juntamente com a fabricante de brinquedos Hasbro, se uniram para lançar uma nova franquia cinematográfica (a primeira foi Transformers, com grade sucesso de público). Elas gastaram cerca de 170 milhões de dólares na produção do filme e outros 150 milhões em publicidade. O que se vê no filme é uma hiperdependência de efeitos especiais. Mas qual filme de Stephen Sommers, criador de ‘A Múmia’ e de ‘O Retorno da Múmia”, não é?

Não há no filme um ator que se destaque como sendo o melhor ou que tenha brilhado mais. Todos estão no mesmo patamar, o que é razoavelmente bom num filme assim, cheio de personagens, pois todos podem mostrar seu trabalho sem pressão. Falo isso até do veterano Danis Quaid. Gosto dele. É sempre bom vê-lo atuando.

No mais, G.I. JOE – A Origem de Cobra é um filme sem pretensões, mas que diverte bastante. Os efeitos especiais não são nada fora do comum, mas intrigam e quase nos hipnotizam, principalmente a cena em que há uma perseguição e dois dos Joe estão usando uma roupa aceleradora… É isso. Classifico-o como uma boa diversão, despretenciosa, com boas cenas de ação em bons planos-sequências e que lhe valerão algumas boas risadas. Resumindo: bom filme!

Trailer:

G.I Joe – A Origem de Cobra (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), distribuído por Paramount Pictures, EUA/2009, um filme de Stephen Sommers, roteiro de Stuart Beattie, David Elliot e Paul Lovett, baseado em estória de Michael Gordon, Stuart Beattie e Stephen Sommers, com Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Marlon Wayans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ray Park, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Fraser, Rachel Nichols, Jonathan Pryce, Arnold Vosloo, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje, Ação, 118 min, inadequado para menores de 14 anos.

Titolo originale: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Regia: Stephen Sommers

Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Said Tagmaoui, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Byung-hun Lee, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park,  Brendan Fraser, Jonathan Pryce, Marlon Wayans, Arnold Vosloo, Karolina Kurkova

Distribuzione: Universal Pictures, USA, 2009

Guarda il trailer

La super squadra G. I. Joe è una squadra speciale composta dai migliori soldati del mondo che entra in gioco quando le forze convenzionali falliscono. Per le sue missioni si serve della tecnologia spionistica e militare più avanzata. Quando l’ambiguo industriale McCullen ( Christopher Eccleston) minaccia il mondo con un’arma pericolosissima a base di nanotecnologia, il team entra in azione per fermarlo.

Spettacolare ed esplosiva questa pellicola firmata da Stephen Sommers, (regista dei primi due capitoli de La Mummia), e tratta dalla serie di fumetti, action figures e cartoni animati G.I. Joe, in voga tra gli anni 60 e gli anni 80.  Quello che si preannuncia come il primo capitolo di una saga, come si intuisce dal finale apertissimo e in chiara aria di sequel, si caratterizza per l’azione adrenalinica e per le scene mozzafiato, ambientate nelle location più svariate, dall’Egitto al centro di Parigi fino ai ghiacci polari. Gli effetti digitali sono potentissimi, come dimostra  la scena dello spettacolare inseguimento  per le strade di Parigi.

Passiamo ora alle note dolenti: la trama è abbastanza scarna, stringata e scontata: i due amici e soldati Duke (Channing Tatum) e Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) vengono arruolati in extremis in questo dream team diretto dal generale Hawk (Dennis Quaid) composto da supermen: il genio dell’informatica e della tecnologia, Breaker ( Said Taghmaoui), il ninja che non parla mai, Snake Eyes (Ray Park), Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), esperto di armi, e da una superwoman,  Shana “Scarlett” O’Hara ( Rachel Nichols). La trama si basa su dei personaggi antitetici e sui loro rapporti, in primis quello tra Duke e Ana (Sienna Miller), la Baronessa, ex fidanzati ora in schieramenti opposti, e quello tra Snake Eyes e il ninja bianco. Storm Shadow ( Byung-hun Lee) nemici sin da bambini e protagonisti di sequenze di combattimento a dir poco spettacolari. C’è spazio per l’azione, ma c’è anche modo di analizzare i personaggi e le loro storie personali: così si scopre ad esempio come mai è finita la storia tra Duke e Ana, o cosa spinge McCullen, il futuro Destro,  alle sue azioni criminali.

Proseguiamo con il cast, decisamente variegato ma ben scelto, a partire dal protagonista, Duke, interpretato da Channing Tatum, il ballerino ribelle del primo Step Up, perfetto nel ruolo del bravo ragazzo dal cuore spezzato, deciso a tutto pur di portare a termine la missione e magari riconquistare la donna della sua vita; il simpaticissimo Ripcord, migliore amico di Duke, molto ironico e dalla battuta pronta, anche nei momenti più drammatici, interpretato da Marlon Wayans, membro della dinastia Wayans onnipresente nel cinema e nella tv made in USA, visto finora solo in ruoli demenziali come in Scary Movie, ma che qui dimostra di essere anche altro. Dennis Quaid è il perfetto generale Hawk, ma la vera sorpresa è Sienna Miller nei panni di Ana, donna cinica e spietata, combattente instancabile, perfetta action woman. Difficile riconoscerla in questi panni, anche per via della grande somiglianza fisica a causa della capigliatura corvina con le attrici Kate Beckinsale e Rhona Mitra. (Confesso che fino ai titoli di coda non avevo capito che fosse lei l’interprete di Ana…) La Miller appare talmente a proprio agio in questi panni da essere scambiata per un’esperta di ruoli d’azione. Inoltre abbiamo due protagonisti de La Mummia, Arnold Vosloo, nei panni di Zartan, l’uomo in grado di cambiare volto, e c’è un piccolo cameo di Brendan Fraser.

In definitiva un buon prodotto, anche se decisamente da migliorare dal punto di vista della trama. Speriamo che il secondo capitolo, la cui realizzazione appare di fatto scontata, migliori questo aspetto.

Conclusione: Consigliato.

Voto: 6.5

O que esperar de um filme baseado na coleção de figuras de ação da Hasbro, os ‘bonequinhos’ do G. I. Joe? Explosões, gente bonita, e claro, te deixar com aquela vontade de entrar na primeira loja de brinquedos e comprar um bonequinho do Storm Shadow e outro do Snake Eyes assim que a sessão terminar!

Com direção de Stephen Sommers, que é conhecido por seus filmes que entretem sem compromisso, como Van Helsing e a trilogia A Múmia. Stephen brinca com o filme como se estivesse realizando seu sonho de criança. Os atores atiram, levam tiro, saltam, caem, brigam, beijam (beijos ridículos, só pra constar), e tem flashbacks. Vários. Sofridos. Na chuva, porque não tem como fugir do clichê.

O filme começa em um futuro não muito distante. O exército transporta uma nova arma com nanorobôs que destroem tudo o que é aço e só param quando são desativados por um controle remoto. O transporte segue bem até os Cobra, um grupo de vilões com armas de tecnologia e treinamento superior ao do exército, atacarem o comboio atrás das tais armas. O capitão Duke, interpretado por Channing Tatum (que já foi stripper mas sem tirar a cueca, só pra deixar claro) e seu braço direito Ripcord, Marlon Wayans, que você provavelmente conhece pelas comédias Todo Mundo em Pânico, são salvos pelos G. I. Joe, uma divisão super secreta do exército internacional de inteligência, armas, tecnologia e treinamento tão avançados quanto os Cobra. É dado o ponta pé para várias reviravoltas, explosões e muita coisa acontecer ao mesmo tempo. Lógico que para haver uma, duas ou três continuações.

Com atores conhecidos, como Arnold Vosloo, interpretando o vilão camaleão Zartan e Brendan Fraser em uma participação muito rápida como Sargento Stone. Pois é, Imhotep e Richard O’Connell em lados opostos de novo! E claro,  Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (quero assistir uma entrevista com alguém dizendo o nome dele completo!) que os fãs de Lost conhecem como Mr Eko, interpretando Heavy Duty. Das gata-garotas temos a linda Sienna Miller, interpretando Ana, a baronesa. Sienna já deu vida a Victoria em Stardust. Rachel Nichols, é Scarlett, a nerd dos Joe. Rachel já atuou no seriado Alias, de J J Abrams. Será que isso pesou na escolha da atriz para a personagem?

G. I. Joe – The Rise of The Cobra (G.I. Joe – A Origem de Cobra) é uma rentável colcha de retalhos. Há diversos personagens que permitem diversas continuações tanto em grupo como histórias fechadas com um ou dos integrantes. Particularmente quero muito que façam um filme solo do Storm Shadow. Byung-hun Lee fez o personagem todo afetado, um verdadeiro Elvis assassino from Japan!