Gi Joe the Movie

I finally saw the new GiJoe film recently, just been reminded about it after reading something related. Just dreadful really. Why can't they make a film that bears some resemblance to the source material instead of rejigging it to fit a Hollywood shaped mould? For instance, they screwed up all the relationships between the characters, if you thought the comics portrayed a trailerpark universe the film has just about everyone being someone's sister or ex-girlfriend. Jeeze.

The few female GiJoe characters do particularly badly in the film. Scarlett hardly shows interest in any man apart from Ripcord who is supposed to be the comic relief, and anyone who knows a shred about GiJoe knows she is Snake Eyes girl forever. But in this they've cut that so she has no romantic interest in anything until one of the top billing stars arrives to turn her head. The Baroness isn't allowed to be a villainess or strong, independent female character, at the end of the story it turns out she's been brainwashed and degenerates into a wimp fit only for being a piece of fluff for Duke. Cover Girl gets killed off with hardly any input into the story.

As for other characters, well Cobra Commander is both the Baroness's brother and an old buddy of Duke's (trailer park universe again) . Great. Oh and he doesn't ever wear his iconic hood but some transparent Darth Vader mask? Argh. Destro is portrayed as some kind of meglomaniac that wants to destroy/rule the world. It's not very clear. But the Destro of the comics has both a personal code on honour and is primarily an arms supplier who frequently takes a neutral position on the GiJoe-Cobra conflicts. And Snake Eyes, they've sanitised and ballsed up his character history something awesome. In the comics he met and served alongside Storm Shadow in Vietnam and was invited to the ninja school after leaving the army wounded. In the film he joins the school after being caught trying to steal food out of their kitchen. Furthermore in the comics Snake Eyes wears a mask and doesn't speak because during an early mission for GiJoe he was horribly burned in a helicopter crash. An accident he could have avoided if he'd jumped out - but he remained to free Scarlett who was trapped because he *loved her*. Obviously they had to dispense with that for the film so he doesn't speak because one of his ninja masters was murdered and now has a 'vow of silence'. Give me strength. (The ninja master was murdered in the comics too but it didn't lead to any silence vows) Why Snake eyes wears a mask in the film then is anyone's guess, but it's probably because it looks 'kewl'.

And why they had to give the GiJoe people power armour instead of allowing them to actually be soldiers instead of superheroes? The film was just one endless string of explosions but that didn't seem to disguise the massive plot hole which begs the question as to what Cobra actually wanted to achieve? They have an underwater city like Atlantis or the Gungan city in Star Wars Phantom Menace, and it's bristling with missiles and they have a seemingly endless private army of people willing to throw their lives away. By the end of the film the tiny submarine the villains limp away in is all Cobra have left. It's utterly baffling, they obviously have a GDP that the United States would be envious of yet the entire premise of this film seems to be that Cobra Commander declares war upon the world and bankrupts the entire organisation and destroys its assets in order to become its commander. Epic Fail. I'll probably give the sequel a miss until it's dirt cheap on DVD.