Saturday, August 29, 2009

Worst Movie of the Summer (spoilers)

It was perfect that we ended the summer by seeing the worst movie of the bunch: GI Joe. Not to say I told you so, but, well, I was reluctant to see it because I thought it would be crap-tastic. However, my wife and daughter wanted to see it. And I have no regrets because it was definitely in the category of "so bad it was highly entertaining."

All you really need to know is that the movie starts at the weapons facility of the biggest arms company on the planet--in Kyrgyzstan. Yep, interesting place to put a weapons facility. I am sure the scientists enjoy their nights on the town in Bishkek or Osh. Anyway, so they need to take the super-destructive WMD from their to the NATO base---by convoy!! Yes, that is quite a drive from Central Asia to West Europe. And the movie goes downhill from there, with many of the key sequences lifted directly from various Star Wars movies: I am your father/brother-in-law; heavy breather in a mask; superweapon that causes one of the good guys to urge all the fighter craft to get close to the bad guy's planes/subs; and more. Oh, and the battle between the two submarine forces looked like two different groups of sperm. And one more thing--most of the major characters got their own flashbacks to explain how they got to where they are today.

And, of course, we had to have the moment where the civilians order the military (the GI Joes) to stand down, and the military rejects their civilian authorities and defeat the bad guys. The movie lesson again is: the guys in uniform are always right and the civilians are always wrong.

The Geek Survival Guide Podcast had warned us, but we pushed on ahead anyway. I don't think I have cackled this hard during a movie in a long time. Just goes to show that bad writing and bad direction can produce an entertaining flick--for its unintentional comedy.

1 comment:

KathyS said...

The actors were good; the dialogue they had stank. I thought that it would be cartoonish, but funny, but there was only a little of that. The battle scenes made little sense.

As you know, the Geek Survival Guide guy basically patted G.I. Joe on the head and said that it was sweet, but that Transformers 2 committed crimes against nature and ruined his childhood memories. I think he got it exactly backwards on those two films. Anyway, at least I'm not going to make you go see the sequel to G.I. Joe.