Now that the Olympics are over, I can catch up on some of
the other things I have been neglecting – first thing – a delayed review of
Snake Eyes! When I first heard they were making this movie, I thought maybe
they would let Ray Park get to play the character again. That is once again not the case as he gets
recast yet again. I am certainly not complaining, Henry Golding is wonderful.
I have zero knowledge of the original G.I.Joe toys or cartoons.
I know they are by Hasbro, and that they were very popular in the 80s – and I
know that knowing is half the battle. I certainly did see the two G.I.Joe
movies, the first with Channing Tatum and the second with the Rock. Snake Eyes in
those is basically a silent ninja all in black with a grudge against a ninja
all in white on the bad guys’ team.
This movie gives you Snake Eyes origin story. What’s that?
You weren’t asking for his backstory? No worries, the majority of this movie
plays like a really cool Yakuza martial arts thriller, and those are the parts
I liked the most. We meet Snake Eyes as a child living with his dad in a very
remote cabin. We soon learn that his dad
is in witness protection as a group of bad guys shows up and eliminates him.
The killer has his dad roll dice to determine his fate and of course they come
up snake eyes, and the child takes that name going forward.
We catch up with him as he is cage fighting for money. A yakuza boss shows up and offers him a job because he knows all about Snake (he really couldn’t find another name to use?) and his quest for his father’s killer. We then jump slightly forward to see that Snake is working for the boss and befriended another employee, Tommy. Then, in a slightly confusing sequence – we learn that Tommy was actually undercover in the organization to keep an eye on the boss who had betrayed his family years ago. Snake saves him, and together they go on the run. Tommy takes Snake back to his family, where he undergoes three challenges to become a ninja of the highest order.
That part of the movie is great, super interesting,
fantastic action, and fantastic and engaging performances by Golding and Andrew
Koji as Tommy. It’s about at this point
where the G.I.Joe bits come in: Snake learns Cobra (the bad guys) was actually
behind the killing of his father because his father was a Joe, Tommy’s family
has a magic weapon stone that they protect but are sworn not to use, and Cobra is
after the stone, big time as they launch an attack on Tommy’s family’s compound
– oh, and there’s a pit with giant snakes. It all gets to be a bit convoluted
but stays entertaining.
Director Robert Schwentke does a great job with both halves of the movie, but they do feel a little like two separate things. I really enjoyed the first half but spent a lot of the second half rolling my eyes. Golding and Koji are great, with Koji being even more interesting than Golding. It is pretty obvious from early on where his character is going, and I might be interested to see more from him.
Haruka Abe plays Akiko, Tommy’s head of security who goes
from distrustful of Snake to suddenly in love with him? A little confusing
there, but she did what she could. The standouts are, of course, Ido Uwais and
Peter Mensah as the two masters on staff at Tommy’s compound who walk Snake through
his challenges. They are both wonderful, action-packed, and bring a light fun
touch that most of the rest of the movie was missing. Everyone else was working
hard, these two were having a good time while working hard.
Ursula Corbero plays the Baroness and Samara Weaving plays Scarlett, the opposing sides of the same coin that feels forced into the story.
This movie is clearly setting up additional G.I.Joe movies which I found interesting, because it does not seem to be an IP that is having any kind of resurgence – the cartoon hasn’t stayed on, it hasn’t been rebooted (as far as I know), so the fan base is basically those who loved it in the 80s and want to see more. That can be a little tough to get the tone of the movies correct. It seems like this movie did that, but I would be curious to know what die hard Joe fans thought and if they even want more live-action movies. Personally, I would have been happy if this was just an organized crime martial arts thriller – which it almost is, so I was almost happy.
6 out of 10
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