Snake Eyes - GI Joe Origins

The Snake’s Progress

Snake Eyes
GI Joe Origins
Paramount Canada/USA 2021
Directed by Robert Schwentke
 
So once again, after a very long time, we have a third GI Joe film, Snake Eyes - GI Joe Origins. This one is not a sequel type of reboot (like the second movie) but a fresh reboot. I could kinda tell that because the main characters, Snake Eyes (played by played by Henry Golding) and Storm Shadow (played by Andrew Koji), are not played by the same actors from the previous films. That being said, it’s all very confusing if you try and shoehorn it into the previous movies and, frankly, they were already confusing enough.

Um... okay, the film deals with Snake Eyes, who spends his life trying to find the man who killed his father when he was a boy. Flash forward to the present and he gets himself involved with a ninja clan of ‘good guys’ who are allies of the GI Joes (represented in this movie by Samara Weaving as Scarlett) and enemies of COBRA (represented by Úrsula Corberó as The Baroness). It’s mostly about his training and moral ambiguity about who he’s really working for... and the way that question gets ultimately resolved by the end of the film.

And it’s a big, dumb blockbuster film with lots of action, not terribly credible characters and actors who look like they are trying to do their best with dialogue which, frankly, is riddled with clichés but without the requisite sense of self awareness behind the writing to allow the actors to elevate things beyond that, it seems to me. What this means is that you don’t really relate all that much to the characters either way (the moral ambiguity of the two leads really doesn’t help this) and, while there’s a lot of fun to the various action pieces... it all feels kinda flat at the same time with nothing much really at stake.

There’s another problem too, to my mind.

In one sequence, Snake Eyes slices open a cut on his hand and pushes it into a similar one from Storm Shadow, so they become blood brothers of sorts. Now, there is another motive for the title character in this scene which you’ll see very quickly after this but, the point is this... this is the only time you will see any blood spilled in the movie. Which is totally unrealistic because, the body count on this one is high and the primary fighting sequences here mostly play out with samurai swords. People getting sliced but not diced and, honestly, loads of people dying without seeming to spill a drop of blood. I mean come on... this really pushes the boundaries of credibility and is a cynical play on behalf of the filmmakers to get a lower cinema rating. And, yes, I know this film is meant to appeal to children as a huge part of the target audience but it really hurts the piece if everyone is dying by sword cuts and there’s no bleeding in sight. If you want to make a credible film for children then it’s very easy... don’t use a weapon of death which, by its very nature, raises the expectations of splashing body fluids as a direct consequence of the actions of the characters. This is too much to swallow.

Okay... this is a short review but I will say one positive in that some of the characters, including Snake Eyes, are likeable enough. That being said, I did notice a lot of the characters played by some famous actors seemed to have very flat delivery of their lines and almost no emotional content. It’s like somebody got a bunch of GI Joe action figures and breathed a semblance of life into these lumps of plastic and, as a result, their on screen presence was not much more than it would have been if we were watching said lump of plastic. For the record, due to the skill of some of these actors and actresses, I can only assume this was a deliberate piece of direction to inhabit the roles as flatly as possible so they do, in fact, more resemble the toys that they are based on. At least I hope that was the case.

However, some of the camera movements are nice, the colour schemes are good and the action choreography, bloodless as it is, is pretty exciting for a while. It’s also edited in a way which doesn’t lose you during the more fast paced scenes so, yeah, all competent movie making... just not necessarily great movie making, in this case. Oh... and believe it or not, Iko Uwais who played the lead character in both of The Raid movies has a big part in this and, considering we all know just how brilliant this guy can be, it’s sad to say that he is likeable but completely wasted in the movie. Like a lot of the cast, it has to be said.

The one thing I did think was okay was the score by Martin Todsharow... which was handy in my case because the only reason I bothered to watch this thing was because of the limited edition CD release of the score in the US. If it hadn’t got a proper CD release, I’d have to say I wouldn’t have bothered watching this one in the first place. So good on the company for at least cutting a CD deal and not giving us that compressed digital download rubbish that a lot of disrespectful companies seem to be peddling these days.

And yeah, that really is me done with Snake Eyes - GI Joe origins. It’s got action, adventure and is an okay watch... but I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone over the age of 12, it has to be said. Now if someone would like to make a proper Action Man movie, along with an actor who can ‘do’ the eagle eyes, that would be a much more interesting proposition.

R.I.P.D - Rest In Peace Department

Brown Breadquarters

R.I.P.D - Rest In Peace Department
2013 USA
Directed by Robert Schwentke
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: There are some slight spoilers about the basic set up of 
the plot here, most of which are already detailed in the trailer anyway.

R.I.P.D is one of those simple concept pitch films which comes up every now and again and, for all intents and purposes, the trailer is not really far from the truth of the movie. With apologies to Mark Kermode and his recent comments on summing up a movie in a few words, the trailer was pretty much "Men In Black does Ghostbusters". And that’s not a million miles away from the truth, in actual fact. Maybe a bit less Ghostbusters and more Men In Black sequel in tone perhaps but... well you’ll get the idea.

The plot involves young cop Nick (played by Ryan Reynolds) who is killed by his partner Hayes, played by Kevin Bacon. Instead of rising up to the pearly gates to face his "Judgement Day", he is instead whisked sideways and joins up with the R.I.P.D... that’s Rest In Peace Department to you. Here he is partnered up with the always watchable Jeff Bridges playing a 19th Century cowboy called Roy... although I think its fair to say that the character as Bridges plays him is less inspired by the name Roy and the connotations that has with the "All American Western" at a certain stage in its history and more informed by Bridges stint playing Rooster Cogburn in the Cohen Brothers version of True Grit. He does seem to be channeling that part a little, although he manages to make his pronunciation and delivery only just comprehensible at times, it has to be said. But it’s a fun performance and certainly entertaining when pitched against Reynolds fish out of water rookie in the R.I.P.D.

So, anyway, the job of the R.I.P.D is to track down all the escaped “dead ‘uns” who have fled to earth and bring them back for their final judgement. Thus endeth the plot and thus begineth the rooting, tooting and shooting. And there’s not much else involved, to be honest. It’s a very formulaic movie but there’s certainly nothing wrong with formulaic entertainment done right.

There are some very obvious clichés right from the outset though, it has to be said. You don’t put someone like Kevin Bacon into a picture like this, for example, playing a minor role so, even before the first ten minutes are up and he’s betrayed his true colours, you know that he’s going to be more involved in the plot later on. As it happens, a transgression Reynold’s character has made means he needs to make up with his fresh widow, who is under the spell of Bacon and it’s here that the film really does go exactly the way you think it’s going to go, I’m afraid. I’m not going to tell you want happens but I’ll be amazed if you can’t work out the little twists and turns before they occur.

That being said, it’s a nice bit of Men In Black style chemistry the film has going for it, without quite the same level of rich details and twists which that specific film series tends to bring to bat. You could, however, argue that it’s more streamlined with less deviations, entertaining or not, from the story line and, if you did, I’d be happy to defer to that judgement. The relationship between Bridges and Reynolds is strained and unforgiving a lot of the time, but that actually works in its favour. Do you really want to go through this whole movie where the two lead protagonists are acting all “nicey nicey” with each other?

On the whole, the performances are all excellent. I especially enjoyed Mary-Louise Parker’s Proctor character, and her relationship with Roy, but all the performances are as dead on, if you’ll excuse the inadvertent pun, as they need to be for a ‘popcorn fodder’ kind of movie like this one. And, as it happens, it’s supported by excellent special effects, supportive scoring, good solid direction and, helpfully, editing which won’t confuse you in the action sequences which, considering what happens during those sequences, seems to be to be a bit of a minor miracle right there. One thing I can’t tell you for sure though is whether it’s a good adaptation of the Dark Horse comic book it’s based on... I’m sorry, I just haven’t read it.

The film is predictable, as I said, but there are really two ways the ending, given its target audience, could have gone and you won’t know which of the two possible versions, involving Nick’s widow, they go with until right at the last knockings. That’s okay though, at least you’ll be guessing up until the last minute. As is expected in films of this nature, it’s easy to see where you could get a sequel from on this one and I certainly would like to see where the studios would go with this as I did find myself quite entertained through most of the running time. Alas, I don’t think it’s been at all successful financially and so it’s unlikely now that we’ll be seeing a sequel to this one anytime soon... unless it manages to pull an Austin Powers or The Transporter in terms of its DVD takings. Time will tell I guess... but I’m not expecting much from that revenue avenue.

However, fans of good time Hollywood blockbusters where you really don’t have to be thinking about anything while your watching should have a fair enough time with this one. Worth a watch before it leaves the cinema, I think.

Dawn of the Red

Red 2010 US

Directed by Robert Schwentke

Playing at all good cinemas now!

When I went to see this movie called Red at the weekend I was fully expecting it to be a bit of a roller-coaster, at least in terms of it’s pacing, but I was also kinda expecting to be disappointed by it. It seems to be a universally well liked film and my response to those kind of “event movies” rarely cross-pollinate well with the opinions of the larger audience. I have to say, I was pleasantly proved wrong on my latter assumptions... but then Red has a secret weapon up it’s sleeve which I wasn’t aware of.

Things I knew about Red before I went:

1. It has a bunch of great actors - Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Brian Cox and Ernest Borgnine - and they are all playing their own age. This is about a bunch of retired hit-men/CIA agents.

2. It has a terrible poster and a terrible title.

3. It has Helen Mirren firing off a big machine gun.

Now quite frankly, the last item in that list kinda sold it to me. In fact the only way that this film could have appealed to me anymore than with that last proposition would have been if that last point had read... It has a naked Helen Mirren firing off a machine gun. Sadly, however, Helen keeps her kit on in this one but even so, this last thing is what got me into the cinema... that and the fact that I also like Bruce, Morgan, John, Brian and Ernest as actors.

What I didn’t know, however, was that this movie had a secret weapon of extra appeal and it’s a double whammy. Point 1... it’s based on a comic book. Point 2... it’s based on a comic book that was originally written by Warren Ellis. Now this second point is important because Warren Ellis was responsible for writing one of the best comics I’ve ever read... not the best, but certainly in the top 10 of all time great comic literature. It was a comic which ran for about 60 issues called Transmetropolitan and if you ever get the chance to check it out you should maybe peruse the pages of this because his slick, clever dialogue coupled with an absolutely amazing and innovative future world is pure artistry. And great art is good so go have a look. As it turns out, the wit of his words doesn’t quite translate as well as it might (is my guess not having read the comic on which this is based) but with a sound template to base your screenplay on... some of it has got to rub off on the writers, surely?

But, back to what should be my main point here... I think just recently, in the last ten years or so, Hollywood has really begun to wake up to the truly rich seam that comic books can offer them as basis for on-screen adventures. The comic book movie has been around since, pretty much, the dawn of film, but it’s only recently that US filmmakers have really given it a proper workout. I’ve been arguing for years now that comics have been so much more subtle and much more willing to push boundaries than movies and it’s not hard to see why (and if you’ve not read a comic book in the last 30 years, do yourself a favour and go and seek out something like Alan Moore’s truly sublime The Ballad of Halo Jones and find out how much of a brilliant literary experience you’ve been missing out on all these years). Comic books don’t have a budget of millions to lose, they are worked on by far less people and the good ones are usually creator led (as far as I can tell) and so these people can afford to take a few risks and push the envelope and talk about and explore subjects and taboos that movies will just shy away from as being suicidally uncommercial.

And even in action titles like Red they can be a good basis for narrative. These things are presented in a visual manner already, after all. Lot’s of mini “frames” of composition which are there to grab your attention. They an translate very well into movie frames (see Sin City, Watchmen, 300 etc). And the thing about comics is that they know action is not always about action. It’s about the build up and come down from the action. It’s not about the moment of the strike - you would not want to read a comic of endless consecutive panels of people firing machine guns endlessly (even if they are Helen Mirren naked) without being peppered with interesting characterisations and situations. And I think that’s what Hollywood is just beginning to pick up from “action” comics (and it’s something that Masters of Cinema like Kurosawa have known from their directorial birth - check out Yojimbo and others of that ilk... it’s all about what comes before and after the moment - not the bloody act of violence itself). It gives them an interesting framework and because the format of comics make them narrative heavy, that’s beginning (I think) to be taken up as an inspiration by the American film-makers whose films make up such a large percentage of the fodder dumped into our multiplexes.

Red has this awareness in spades and the location changes even echo a comic book sensibility - they are somewhat reminiscent of the spirit of the scene wipes in old TV shows like Batman and The Man From UNCLE and they fit in well with the fast pacing of the picture and the general sense of fun which comes across from the actors. And kudos to the few young people in it... Mary Louise Parker is just fantastic and as for Karl Urban (the new Doctor McCoy and Judge Dredd)... he’s just awesome and I’m really going to have to keep an eye on this guy.

Fast paced, funny and as slick a Hollywood action fest as you’re likely to see, Red is a lot of fun and though at least one issue covered is really quite terrible, the deftness with which it is handled is enough to distract you from it long enough that you won’t worry about it until the movie has ended.

If you like action and dialogue heavy humour, take a look at Red.

It’s got a fully clothed Helen Mirren shooting off all kinds of automatic weaponry!