Stephen Sommers directed G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra and he is also responsible for The Mummy, Van Helsing and the underrated Deep Rising.
Sam Worthington was wanted to play Duke but was making James Cameron's Avatar.
Dennis Quaid signed up as his son was a G.I. Joe fan.
Scottish actor and martial arts expert Ray Parks is dressed head to toe in black and unseen and unheard playing the role of Snake Eyes. Parks was Toad in X-Men and was Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
There are cameo's in the movie from Brendan Fraser, Arnold Vosloo and Kevin J. O'Connor. All three actors appeared in The Mummy.
Film Plot
A military unit known as G.I. Joe do battle with a Scottish arms dealer who is developing nano technology weapons and in the background is an evil organization known as Cobra.
Positives
The film blends CGI and live action seamlessly to create some very impressive visual effects which put you right in the middle of the action scenes. Dennis Quaid is impressive whenever he is onscreen and always commands respect and in my opinion is the best actor in this film.
The film starts promisingly enough and is fast paced enough to please most people. I felt Marlon Wayans and Rachel Nichols did a fine job in their roles and both have fantastic personalities.
Stephen Sommers is a better director than many give him credit for and he knows how to make this type of film and it shows in his handling of the onscreen action. I was probably one of the few people who actually enjoyed his last film Van Helsing.
I did like the cinematography in this film.
Negatives
It's unfortunate that i feel there are more negatives than positives for this particular film.
I felt the second half of this film just fell apart and the director admits his love of Thunderball inspired the underwater ending. The problem with Thunderball was that the underwater scenes just dragged on and on and they ended up almost sending me to sleep and this was exactly my feelings about those scenes in this film.
I felt the script and especially the dialogue during the second half of this movie was poor and could have been a lot better. Dennis Quaid was given some very poor dialogue and really didn't have enough to do other than just read bog standard lines.
The lead actor Channing Tatum was poor and wooden and had no personality in this movie. I am sure he is a fine actor when he gets the chance but in this movie i felt he brought nothing to the table. Sienna Miller really didn't do much for me either and seemed to think being able to pose was all that was required for this movie. English actor Christopher Eccleston playing a Scots villian was just average and was lightweight when the movie was crying out for a heavyweight.
The music score by Alan Silvestri was a generic uninspired offering and the composer has done far better work than this film.
Image Quality
I felt the image quality on this disc replicated the cinema experience and i feel that's all you can ask for and the movie is on my reference list which you can view by clicking here.
I saw no compression issues which stood out and nor did i see any issues with edge enhancement or other anomalies which would lower my score.
Intentional softness in some scenes which combine CGI and live action was apparent but not an issue and i feel many will consider this Blu Ray disc to be eye candy.
Black levels were very good with lots of visible detail in the night scenes. I felt close ups, medium camera and long distance camera shots all displayed very good detail levels.
In fact i don't think there is anything to complain about with this transfer.
Sound Quality
I felt sound quality was very good with good front speaker activity and the speech came across clear through the centre channel while there was also some nice split surround activity.
I did feel the bass channel was not as deep as i would have liked for this type of movie, It just didn't move the air and shake my couch the way some films do and i personally feel this type of movie should go deeper with it's bass content.
It's a good sound mix but in my opinion it's not a great sound mix. A little more split surround activity and deeper bass is what i would have liked and if it had that then i feel it would have been a reference quality mix.
Final Thoughts
I sometimes wonder if they have a computer churning out these scripts on a daily basis and then some scriptwriter comes along and touches the screenplay up, so many films seem to have high concept idea's but someone forgets that dialogue and likeable characters who you care for are needed to make a film stand out and last the test of time. This film is just so generic and forgettable and it feels like more thought went into the CGI effects than into the dialogue.
The film may have worked better with a charismatic leading man although i doubt it since the dialogue would still have been poor.
One character during the underwater battle in the film says "I lost my wingman" and i thought to myself that the scriptwriter has seen Top Gun too many times.
The director believes all the weapons and technology that appear in the film are feasible within the next twenty years. I'm still waiting for the Star Trek transporters.
At the end of the day this film just leaves me feeling cold and i hope there is not a sequel.
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