“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is gettting shellacked by bad buzz. Rumor has it the director has been canned.
If the rumors are to be believed, not only is G.I. Joe the lowest-testing film in the history of Paramount, but executive Brad Weston has fired director Stephen Sommers from the project!
Yo Joe! Can say I called this one. From dropping all that “real American” pretension, to stocking the cast ultra young, to making the trailer a CGI smorgasbord, this one had stinker written all over it. Will see for myself in a couple months.
Meanwhile, instead of taking in “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” me and Mrs. FnWayne re-visited “The Hangover,” which may have been funnier the second time. Been married seven years and we’ve never gone to the same movie twice while still in theater, and she claims she wouldn’t mind seeing it a third time.
Can even Hama’s Snake Eyes be heard laughing now?
Not terribly surprising. The previews were terrible, they appeared to miss catching the essence of any of the characters in the casting, and…eh, come on, you just can’t handle ‘Joe the same way you do The Transformers. Even the studio itself could never quite tie the Transformers and GI Joe together in the ’80s when they tried.
However all is not lost: The recent cartoon revival of GI Joe was really really good, and my review is online here if anyone’s interested http://www.republibot.com/content/review-gi-joeresolute-2009 More than probably, the movie will fail, and this Warren Ellis-penned relaunch will be a one-time-only thing, but it’s still pretty good. Hard not to like it.
(Though I am a bit surprised they’d fire the director at this late date – as I understand it, the entire movie is already shot and in the can, all that’s left is editing and post-production stuff. That’s kind of like shooting the pilot *after* he’s landed the crashing plane, but before he taxies it back to the terminal)
This isn’t really a surprise – the trailer has to be one of the more awful things I’ve seen in a long time, but I think that stems from the uber-shiny, high-tech, CGI-laden direction they chose to go with it. I feel like this could have been a lot better if they had instead opted for a grittier, more realistic tone and look. Focus on (realistic) ultimate badass solider guys doing ultimate badass soldier guy things against a semi-realistic terrorist – more Tears of the Sun/Rainbow Six – instead we get something that looks more like a second sequel to an already dumb, crappy Transformers movie. Big fat “Meh.”