Witz Flix: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I haven't seen the new(ish) live action G.I. Joe movie because everyone I know who saw it said it was terrible. Turns out, everyone I DON'T know who saw it also said it was terrible. It got a 34% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a hearty 3% WORSE than Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Netflix believes I will give it 1.4 stars. That sounds like a challenge. "Yo Joe..."

1 min: Take a minute and guess any number of ways the G.I. Joe movie starts...I don't think any of us saw, "France - 1641" coming.

2 min: This dude of the Clan McCullen tried to kill the King of France or something, which didn't go well, and now they're putting a red hot metal Iron Man looking mask onto his face. It's kind of like in the movie The Mask, but he's a bit less excited about it and instead of super powers, he gets the worst pain he's ever felt in his entire life. Side note: This is bafflingly not what the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, "Man in the Iron Mask" was about.



3 min: "In the not too distant future..." C'mon movie, go out on a limb and tell me when this thing is taking place. It's not like 2011 is gonna happen and I'm going to say, "That movie was totally wrong about when The Rise of Cobra happens!"

4 min: Just when you thought bed bugs were a problem, some Scottish guy invents Nanomites-- they're tiny metal bugs that eat everything from cancer cells to metal and buildings. Anyway, they're being loaded into warheads and shipped to NATO. If they're anything like my mail, they won't ever arrive. (I'm actually pretty sure that my super elderly landlord has been taking some of my mail either by accident or for his own entertainment. Two floors above me, an eighty-five year old Italian man is wearing a Tim Riggins t-shirt, reading a postcard from my girlfriend, and watching I Love You, Beth Cooper.)

5 min: Marlon Wayans! Just when you thought he couldn't make a better movie than Little Man, he's back in action alongside Channing Tatum. They're in charge of moving the weapons.

8 min: The convoy is attacked by some "Never Before Seen" aircraft, but it looks a whole lot like the ship from that game Descent (remember Descent?). It's killin' everyone, but Tatum (character is Duke) and Wayans (Ripcord) are evading it so far. Just imagine you're playing Halo. It's like that.

10 min: "OoOOoo, it's a laaady..." and a bunch of foot soldiery lookin' dudes.



13 min: The lady is Sienna Miller, Channing and her seem to have dated, a mysterious military unit shows up, and together they fight off the bad guys and retain the weapon. I'm pretty sure this is the point where I'm supposed to be excited because I recognize the different G.I. Joe characters from my youth, but unless one of them is "Guy Who's Legs Spin Around Because the Rubber Band is Busted" I'm afraid I don't remember.

14 min: I think it's important to note that Sienna has the same glasses that my dad had-- she can make them change from sunglasses to clear glass and back again.



16 min: Dennis Quaid (General Hawk) shows the two their super-sneaky-secret base in the desert, which is not entirely unlike the sandbox where mine sometimes existed. He explains the G.I. Joe unit: "When all else fails, we don't," which sounds like the slogan for an abortion clinic. Hawk continues, "We take all the best soldiers from all the best units in the world,"...and also hot chicks, apparently. It looks like the recruiting pool for Sterling Cooper secretaries in there.

17 min: Dennis Quaid says, "We need to find out all we can about her (referring to Sienna Miller who tried to steal the weapons). KNOWING is half the battle." Even he sounds pained delivering such an expected line. He then goes straight to The Wikipedia for answers.

19 min: The Scottish guy, McCullen, who invented the weapon is also the one trying to steal the weapon. In unrelated news, the Republicans took back the House of Representatives recently because people were upset about the bad economy...

22 min: A scientist guy who may or may not be Keanu Reeves invented Neo-Vipers, which are humans turned into military drones who feel no fear, pain, or moral issues. "The real world application for them is endless," Maybe Keanu says. Finally, someone we can pay less than illegal immigrants to do the horrific jobs nobody wants to do...Also, now that he's injured, I give Michael Vick two weeks before he has Neo-Vipers fighting each other in his backyard.

27 min: 4 Years Ago, Duke proposed to Sienna and she said yes. AND JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT WAS THERE??? 3rd Rock From the Sun is Sienna's brother, apparently.

30 min: Training montage in their new Joe suits, which make you, "Run faster, jump higher, and hit harder." Oh, I see. I didn't realize G.I. Joe were big cheaters. Bud Selig's gonna allow it.

31 min: HAHAHA, Brendan Fraser just showed up! This is certainly a Blast From the Past!

39 min: Sienna et al break in and grab the warhead. A big fight ensues, but everybody survives-- sorry, I mean, everybody important survives-- a shiiiit ton of soldiers we don't know got totally effed up in the process.

41 min: Aaaand we're flashing back 20 years to when Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes met. They were kids and Snake Eyes was poor and stole some food. Storm Shadow caught him and the two fought until Storm Shadow's dad broke it up and they eventually took Snake Eyes in. That reminds me: Did ANYONE see the new Karate Kid movie??



46 min: So the Scottish guy still has the iron mask from his distant relative and is going to unleash one of the warheads on Paris because he hasn't forgotten what the french did to his great-great-great-great-whatever. It's a bit much.

51 min: Apparently, Channing Tatum's dreams are vivid expository narratives from his past, so we now know that Sienna's brother, the kid with the abnormally long neck from Inception, was blown up in East Africa during a military mission involving Channing and Marlon. But I'm pretty sure he wasn't killed and is actually the evil scientist working for McCullen who looks like Keanu Reeves...

54 min: Sienna and Storm Shadow bring the warheads to a lab in Paris where they have them "weaponized"-- which apparently means having them spin around while a laser shoots at them for a while-- good to know this movie is following the same scientific accuracy as Human Centipede. Just as they're leaving, the Joe team shows up.

55 min: HAHAHA, "Snake Eyes, catch that hummer!" someone shouts and Snake Eyes hops out of the van and starts running robotically after a speeding vehicle. It's hilarious because of how he looks running after the vehicle, and because the phrase, "I'm gonna go catch a hummer," needs to be a thing.

65 min: A ten minute chase just ensued without any characters being killed. The warhead blew up the Eiffel Tower and released the Nanomites, but Duke hit the disarm button that Sienna had and stopped the city from being destroyed. I'm not entirely convinced this movie respects my time.

66 min: Duke got taken, the rest got arrested. They're all, "We're the good guys," which is true, but to be fair, I'm pretty sure they broke a few laws along the way.

78 min: The team is set free and goes to rescue Duke and get the warheads. McCullen is going to transform Duke into one of those Neo-Vipers and Sienna's not entirely sure how she feels about it. And to think that I used to believe only TNT knew drama...

82 min: And boom goes the dynamite: the creepy scientist IS Joseph Gordon Levitt, Sienna Miller's brother. The Joe's are oscar mike to rescue Duke and stop the missiles from being launched. As they arrive the missiles are launched and Ripcord goes off in some plane he found to try and stop them. I know this is boring and unfunny, but I wanted to give you a little window into what I'm dealing with.


(JGL, 3rd Rock From the Sun glory)

87 min: Sienna Miller saves Duke and is then "shut down" by her brother who put Nano-mites in her dome piece. I'd like to hear Kanye West rap about Nanomite technology. McCullen runs in and Duke pulls a gun on him. The scientist holds the iPad looking device with the destruct button on it for Sienna's brain. It's a standoff.

89 min: The Joe's and the army are assaulting the base. I just noticed that Snake Eyes's armor has pecs and abs, which seems both entirely unnecessary and absolutely the way to go. I'd tell the G.I. Joe Tailor, "I for sure want the abs and pecs..aand while you're at it, let's throw in a Greg Oden cock in the pant armor, thanks." The outline of a huge penis chiseled into your armor would definitely throw your enemy off a split second long enough to have the advantage.



92 min: Duke shoots McCullen as McCullen shoots at him, which somehow sets McCullen on fire. The scientist goes flying from the blast and drops the controls to Sienna's brain. Duke grabs it and bafflingly knows exactly what to push to deactivate her little techno-coma. He then checks in on foursquare.

94 min: McCullen and the scientist escape in a sporty little submarine and Duke and Sienna follow them in one of their own. They are being chased and as they all zoom through underwater tunnels firing at each other, I realize that this whole scene is totally ripping off the Body Wars ride at Epcot.

96 min: Snake Eyes and Snow Shadow are locked in an epic battle-- and by "epic" I mean, "time consuming." (99 min: Snakes Eyes finally kills Snow Shadow...no big whoop.)

97 min: Ok, so Ripcord shot down the first missile in his plane, which it turns out used the command code "fire" in CELTIC, which the smart Joe girl figured out and told him over the radio. NOW, he goes to fire at the second missile and says the word again no problem. There's a lot of unrealistic shit in this movie, but this is the most unrealistic of all. There is zippy chance Ripcord remembered the "fire" command in celtic while zooming at hundreds of miles an hour chasing a missile from Eastern Europe to Washington DC.

100 min: Hehe, McCullen angrily says, "Kill them all! Detonate THE ICE PACK!" which if you aren't paying attention sounds alright, but if you realize he just said "ice pack" it's pretty funny. Everyone's screaming, "Look out for the ICE PACK!" The Joe's are all like, "Pull back! The ICE PACK IS BLOWN!" I'd be screaming, "Don't get the goopy chemical gel on you! I've pulled lots of muscles, but I'm still unclear on whether or not that's bad!!"



104 min: Wow, that's a whole lotta CGI sinking into the ocean. I've also really wanted to make a, "More like C.G.I. Joe!" joke this whole time, but I also read that same quip in a review halfway through watching this so I feel unoriginal.

106 min: What the scientist guy has in technological brilliance, he totally lacks in nicknaming ability. He injects McCullen with Nanomites which turn his face into an iron mask instead of burned flesh. "James McCullen is no more. You are DESTRO!" he declares. He then puts on his own mask and says, "And you can call me COMMANDER!" Destro and Commander? They sound like strippers at a gay club in Pittsburgh.



107 min: The two villains are surrounded by Duke and the Joe army and are arrested. "This is just the beginning," Cobra Commander declares, to which Duke replies, "I'll be waiting for you." Seriously?? Three strikes in California and you're going to jail for drug posession, but Cobra Commander and The Guy Who Tried To Kill EVERYONE might make parole???

109 min: Ohhhh shit! The disguise guy is The President! Wait, did I mention disguise guy? My bad. So, there's this bad guy who's really into disguises. Like, he had a laser shoot him in the face and reconfigure his face cells to look like someone else. If someone asked, "So what are you into?" I imagine he'd reply, "I'm pretty into disguises." Anyway, at the end of the movie, he's the President, which would have been a GREAT TWIST, except it was really obvious the whole way through that he would end up being The President...oh-- of the United States, not like...of Walmart or Boston College or something. Which I suppose YOU didn't see/read coming, sooo.....TWIST!

110 min: And roll credits. Another successful children's toy brought to the big screen...gah. I'm a little offended Netflix OVERestimated my 1.4 star rating. Regardless, WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE A LEGOS MOVIE?? And why did they call this movie "The Rise of Cobra?" At best it's "The Rise and Fall of Cobra," or just, "G.I. Joe: Well, Now There's A Group Known As Cobra..." I don't get it. BUT DON'T WORRY, there's a sequel in the works. How bad does a movie have to be to NOT get a sequel? I'll explore that question and more when I watch "Sex and the City 2" for you all next week.

Say It Ain't So, Joe,
Witz