A seven nation army could hold them back

I hate it when the previews for a film are more exciting and better than the film itself. I won't post any spoilers tonight but I will leave you with a few observations about the GI Joe sequel.

*The closest I will get to a spoiler (avert your eyes now) is that, although the previews make the film seem like it will center around Cobra Commander, it really doesn't. More on that in a later spoiler-filled post. But I will warn you in advance that you won't see him for more than maybe 10 or 15 minutes all total. I was none too happy about that.

*If you are going to delay the release of a film and generate hype, you better live up to it. I give the film maybe a 5 or 6 of 10. It was not terrible but I guess I am a rare bird because I liked the first one better.

*There are some great action and battle sequences.

*Some of their decisions about which characters to keep and which to not keep pissed me off. It was a similar reaction to what I had in Skyfall: "Jeez. What a disappointment after all this waiting."

*The previews of the movie were better than the film. When the Cobra flags unfurl at the White House, I got goosebumps. When Lupe Fiasco's "Little Weapon" plays as Cobra is walking towards the camera like a badass, I cheered. You really don't get any of that emotion in the actual film. There is some kind of chemistry missing. (THIS is the movie I wanted to see: http://movies.yahoo.com/video/g-joe-retaliation-trailer-3-163139765.html I wanted to see Cobra strut.)

*I walked into the theater wearing a Cobra shirt and the doofy manager asked me, "And what are you here to see?" I wanted to say, "Really, dude? Really?" LOL


I think I hoped for an evolution of the character a la Loki in The Avengers. You see signs of his change in Thor but in The Avengers, his character is more developed and he owns his mischief. If he was on volume 5 in Thor, he's on 20 in Avengers. I still think his speech to Black Widow is amazing. That is what I wanted from Cobra. I wanted him to be a malicious, scheming, badass villain. I wanted him to be "burdened with glorious purpose." Magneto at the end of X Men First Class is more menacing. At least he's moving missiles with his mind and killing Sebastian Shaw with the Nazi coin. We get that Cobra is the puppet master who's controlling the game from behind the scenes. But that doesn't mean he should only get 10 minutes of screen time.  I mean, he puts his flags everywhere and doesn't hide his involvement. So WTF?