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Yahoo!Some films have no right to be good, but, maddeningly, don’t suck. Here I’m thinking of Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day, which really is a crescendo of clichés synthesized from Lucas, Spielberg, and Area 51 buffs, featuring actors who seem happily oblivious to the cheesiness of the script. Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, and Bill Pullman emoting and blowing stuff up: in short, terrific swill.
Maybe G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra isn’t as paradoxically horrible/fantastic as Emmerich’s masterwork, but Stephen Sommers, who directed 1994's The Jungle Book (good) and The Mummy Returns (dreck), seems cut from the same B-movie-making cloth. This is good schlock, and somehow Sommers talked decent actors like Jonathan Pryce into propping up the film’s dumb-lug “stars” Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans—though you might well argue their performances quite definitively define the quintessential heroes of brain-vacation entertainment. Much better, though, G.I. Joe has the slinky, intelligent Sienna Miller as its leather-encased evil henchwoman. Her striding presence vivifies the boys in this cast who don’t have much to say, and don’t articulate it easily either.
But who cares? The film has an underwater city situated beneath the polar ice caps, suits that accelerate human combatants and allow them to withstand SUV collisions, and warheads loaded with nano-warriors that eat Eiffel Tower metal on command. (Why is it always the Eiffel Tower?) And remarkably, it’s tons of fun.
But you’re right, it’s not Shakespearian and John Wayne’s estate should sue Dennis Quaid for his horrible impressions. Notions of reality based on scientific knowledge have been readily scuppered here and the premise is juvenile, but the chases are fun and a lot of stuff explodes. If this isn’t why we go to summer movies, I guess I’m not clear on the purpose of popcorn.
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