GI Joe

[richlayers]

This is sort of a review. Sort of.

My mind is just boggled by the negative reaction to GI Joe. Mostly because it doesn't seem to be, "Ehh, it wasn't my thing/I didn't really like it," so much as the people who didn't like it really HATED it, reviled it, thought it was the worst movie ever, or reacted in some other way to convey a disappointment so extreme that it evoked in them an emotion better reserved for genocide or ex-boyfriends.

Okay, so this movie wasn't life-changing for me. The plot was fairly predictable, the love stories lacked originality, the bad guy had some cheesy lines. The physics occasionally visited the realm of gross improbability. The special effects were shiny, the explosions were big, the Baroness wore leather, Channing Tatum looked ripped, the best buddy had some funny lines, the... ice sank in water? All the kinds of things that I expect from a summer action flick. Well worth the price of a matinee for a couple hours of mindless fun.

So my question is, what were these people expecting? Seriously, if you want an intellectual thriller, a tightly woven plot, deep and original characters... Why are you going to see a movie made by HASBRO? But, as my friend Gregory said:

"Well, the original cartoon was one of the most intellectual sci-fi/action/toy commercial cartoons of all time...I can see how they might be disappointed."

Comments

[lisa-schroeder.livejournal.com]

My boys and friends and my husband are going to see it this weekend. I'm opting to see the Time Traveler's Wife, just because we hardly ever go to the movies, and I want to see it SO bad.

Anyway - they are really excited to see it and don't have any high expectations for it so I'm sure they'll like it just fine.

[spinninghead.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie... but I think people really just like to be dramatic. Instead of saying their real reaction of "oh, it just wasn't that great" or "that movie was dumb", they like to get their knickers in a twist and say that it was the WORST movie ever, etc. etc. so they can get attention and feel like part of the oh-so-important group of harsh movie critics who have strong passionate hate for mediocre-but-still-entertaining films. That's just my $.02 :)

[dscotton.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after all the negative reviews I went to see it expecting to hate it... and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit! I'm not sure what people were expecting but it's hard for me to see how a *G.I. Joe* movie could have been much better.

[psycho-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

I'm glad we weren't the only ones laughing at the sinking ice...

The movie was made for pretty explosions and fighting, not depth. And I enjoyed it as it was.