Reviews

Review: GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

If only they'd brought Mr. Potato Head into the mix.

By TOM MEEK | August 13, 2009

1.5 Stars

Check your kids' closet for the latest hot Hollywood-movie franchise: G.I. Joe follows Transformers, and we're told that adaptations of Battleship and Candy Land are on the way. Too bad all the studios know how to do with the plastic boy action figures is prop them up with booming CGI FX, buff babes in Lycra, and an inane conspiracy theory (world domination through nanotechnology — yawn).

In the hands of director Stephen Sommers, who did better with the Mummy series, Joe looks like a cheap video game brightened by good actors (Dennis Quaid and Jonathan Pryce) in bit parts along the way. Taking one for the team are Channing Tatum as the dutiful soldier trying to save the world (but not the movie), Sienna Miller as his former love interest turned rogue commando for a nefarious military-industrial conglomerate, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the generic mad scientist. If only they'd brought Mr. Potato Head into the mix.

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ARTICLES BY TOM MEEK

ASSHOLES RULE | September 16, 2009
It seems that, these days, being a self-righteous boor is the new "in" thing.

REVIEW: SORORITY ROW | September 16, 2009
You can't fault young actresses (here including Rumer Willis, the daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, and Briana Evigan, who's nearly Moore's double) for jumping into a mindless movie like this one from Stewart Hendler.

REVIEW: WHITEOUT | September 16, 2009
The title of this thriller from Dominic Sena ( Swordfish ) is supposed to describe a brutal Antarctic storm, but what's more likely to come to mind is the goop the film's phalanx of writers used to blot out boos-boos while revising the script.

REVIEW: THE FINAL DESTINATION | September 02, 2009
David R. Ellis, who helmed Final Destination 2 , pretty much reworks the exact same shebang here.

REVIEW: MY ONE AND ONLY | September 02, 2009
If you've thought of George Hamilton only as a B-celeb with a Day-Glo perma-tan, think again.

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