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The G is for Goofball

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Why Movies based on Toy Lines Only need 2 Dimensions

Just like Darth Dylan, once you get Fatboy started, you can’t shut him up. Still, this one is gold! –AD

A veritable crate-ful of new images from Stephen Sommers’ GI Joe movie was air-dropped into the eager, empty, crumb-scattered lap of a geek populace this morning, and unlike the rash of photos from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that have been slowly rolling like a paper mache boulder down dolly track, the reaction to the Joe photos has been interesting. That is to say, there’s at least been a reaction. Indy’s generating about as much heat as a snowflake outside a bar in Tibet.

You got Marlon Wayans loaded for bear, Sienna Miller just flat-out loaded, Christopher Eccleston looking snazzy as Destro, and Darth Maul getting his ginsu-guns on as Snake Eyes. The reactions have run the gamut: “That looks PERFECT!” “Everyone’s just wearing black.” “It’s like they taped an 80’s laptop to his chest.” “THAT’S Doctor Who?” “Wow. I’m getting Mortal Kombat flashbacks.”

It’s that last one I wanna pay attention to...

Because it sounds derisive at first, but I find that if GI Joe is going to work, it needs to look like this, and it needs to be as campy and cheesy as possible. Yes, I know Larry Hama managed to make more serious stories work in the comics realm, but sometimes things that work in 4 color glory on cheap stock seriously do not work on screen. They just don’t. And too many people in the movie going audience only remember the cartoon. And trying to apply anything resembling a millimeter’s worth of depth to this film is going to be a waste.

I gotta think that’s why they hired Stephen Sommers in the first place. Van Helsing. The Mummy. Deep Rising. This is not a man known for subtlety, for character shading. He got the fop from Moulin Rouge to play Dracula and made him chew scenery until his jaw fell off. He’s Paul W.S. Anderson with a budget. And who directed Mortal Kombat? Paul W.S. Anderson. As a matter of fact, it still stands as his best movie. And it’s big, dumb, wasteful, throwaway cheese.

That’s the only way Mortal Kombat was going to work as a movie, and I believe the same thing about GI Joe. It’s fun and doofy. I know people are going to point to Michael Bay’s “Transformers” as an example of how you can give a movie based on a toy line some gravitas, but I think too many people confuse real gravitas with overheated bombast—which is Bay’s natural setting. That’s his neutral gear. Plus, for as much as his overexposure is grating now, Shia LeBeouf’s wide-eyed awe helped transport people into the headspace where the awe of 50 foot tall alien robots was realer than any effect onscreen.

There’s no room for such awe in a GI Joe movie. It’s not built for that. It’s built to be pretty and make loud noises. Channing Underwear model is the lead across Heath Ledger v 2.0 aka Joseph Gordon Levitt as Cobra Commander. It’s built to be The Big Hit crossed with Torque glazed with The Mummy. It’s a chance for people who grew up with these toys and this cartoon to play with those toys while cameras are running, and that’s it. There’s something cool about that: My generation grew up and decided to make GI Joe and Transformers movies. Wasteful or not—my geek heart says that’s damned cool.

Expecting pathos and gravitas from Stephen Sommers pointing a lens at his hand moving a ¾ inch plastic man and going “Pkewww, pchraaargh” is a recipe for disappointment, though. It’s inevitable that people will feel that disappointment, because one of the afflictions of the modern geek is the need to take elements of childhood fun, drag them into adulthood and shade everything with charcoal and noir grime no. 4.

But I look at these pictures and I think “Mortal Kombat all over again” and I grin, because it’s about time something big, loud, and dumb was unleashed on our nostalgia-addicted eyes the way Mortal Kombat was. This might be just as perfect a marriage of content and director as Bay and Transformers was. And these images reinforce that notion. These aren’t actors. They’re toys. If the movie looks plasticene and silly, good. It’s a GI JOE movie. It’s more than appropriate that everything I’ve seen looks like a toy. And I’m curious to see how Sommers is going to push these toys around the sandbox.