HOLY SHIT IT'S HENRY ROLLINS

Okay, I lied about "last post on this topic" but that's only because I hadn't discovered this until now.

This is a long-distance dedication to my friend, Shawn Sage:

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Starring
Laz Alonso as Doc
Alexis Bledel as Lady Jaye
Billy Crudup as Zartan
Zach Galifiankais as Snow Job
Tony Hale as Dr. Mindbender
Vinnie Jones as Destro
Joey Kern as Tomax
Joey Kern as Xamot
Chuck Liddell as Gung Ho
Julianne Moore as Scarlett
Henry Rollins as Duke
Alan Tudyk as Shipwreck
Olivia Wilde as The Baroness
and
Sgt. Slaughter as Himself

I bow before the master

Topless Robot has the best summary/FAQ of Gee Eye Schmoe that I have ever seen. I grovel before its comedic brilliance. A sample to whet your appetite:

Grr. Okay. Now terrorists have a bomb and are heading to Paris to use it, right? G.I. Joe must bring out the big guns for this battle. How many troops do they send? How many jets and jeeps and tanks and things?
Five.

Five tanks?
Five people. But they rent a van.

FUCK YOU.
I mean, I'm assuming. They're in a perfectly nice white van with no technological upgrades at all, such as one might rent at Enterprise.

FUUUUCCCKKK YOOOOUUUU
Look, it makes more sense when you realize they're only chasing after two people in an SUV.

Oh my fuck that's horrible.
At least the Baroness' SUV has this spiky bumper thing that somehow flips cars 40 feet into the air. And the Joes do have the accelerator suits.

This is not the epic G.I. Joe battle I wanted to see on screen. Please tell me at least the five Joes put on those goofy accelerator suits --
Five? Ha ha! No, there's only two. And they give them to the new guys, Duke and Ripcord. Ripcord falls down a lot.

This is pitiful.
Would it make you feel any better if I told you Scarlett stole some random French guy's motorcycle and gave chase?

Not really.
Good, because eventually the Baroness shoots her bike, Scarlett leaps 40-feet vertically off it (strong thighs!), Ripcord catches her, sets her down, and then she gets back in the van anyways.

Please tell me they actually manage to stop the SUV in the accelerator suits.
No, but they do cause millions in property damage throughout Paris.

Does Snake Eyes stop the car at least?
Kind of.

Kind of?
Well, it's hit by a train. But it's implied Snake Eyes wanted it to get hit by a train, so maybe there's a connection there.

...
...uh, but Storm Shadow fires the missile at the Eiffel Tower and it gets destroyed anyways.

Of course it does.
Still, Duke manages to use his accelerator suit to leap into the departing Cobra jet, turn off the fail-safe switch on the bomb's remote thus saving the rest of Paris, although he immediately gets captured.

In his superpowerful accelerator suit.
He took his helmet off.

Wait, I thought Destro just wanted to destroy the Eiffel Tower anyways. So did G.I. Joe just fail utterly?
Not exactly. At some point the bad guys' plan morphed into annihilating Paris.

Then couldn't Storm Shadow have just fired his nanomite rocket launcher anywhere in Paris? Wouldn't that have worked perfectly fine, and gotten to the Eiffel Tower eventually?
Yes, but it's the principle of the thing.

Last post on this topic, I promise.

WNW: Porkchop Sandwiches

I haven't been to bed at all today. At 1:30 this morning I took my father to the emergency room (he's fine now) and, because I have Shit What Needs Get Done Today, there's no point in going to bed until Shit Gets Done.

Therefore, this is fucking hilarious:



And that means this is nothing short of sublime comedy perfection:



Porkchop sandwiches!

Yo Schmoe

Frankly, I was shocked that it took this long to make a G.I. Joe movie. I figured that in the wake of 9/11, a movie about an elite counterterrorist unit would have gotten the greenlight within 3 months and be out in time for summer 2002. Sadly, the movie which is out now was not worth the seven year wait.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra is, as my buddy Tom Foss pointed out, a "flaming piece of crap-gilded crap." I knew it was going to be awful the moment I saw that Snake-Eyes had Schumacher-esque foam rubber lips molded onto his mask, and my beliefs were confirmed with each additional trailer I saw. I said I would never see this movie, but I was dragged along anyway, and even with a free ticket I still feel I paid too high a price.

No, I'm not going to review the movie. Tom did an excellent job of that above, and it's currently hovering at the 40% mark at Rotten Tomatoes. The last time I checked, the profits had dropped by 18% between Friday and Saturday, so it seems pretty likely that word of mouth is spreading about its awfulness. Instead, I'm going to quote myself from earlier posts, because they are relevant:

• "This is the Hollywood machine, people; its entire purpose in life is to take a giant stinking shit on beloved memories in an attempt to wring cash from your pockets." -- 7/05/07
  
• "There is a practice in Hollywood whereby films that are expected to do poorly -- usually cheap horror films and teen comedies -- are not sent to film critics to review. This is done so that the films can at least reap the benefits of opening weekend receipts before poor critical review and word of mouth can do any damage." -- 6/10/08
• "Neener." -- 5/05/09

At first pass, you'd think that the concept of G.I. Joe is too simple to screw up: a team of uber-elite soldiers uses bleeding-edge weapons to fight a terrorist threat. It's Men in Black, only without the aliens. How hard could it be to get right?

Then you think of the 80s cartoon with the red laser vs. blue laser battles, and you realize that when studios pander to the lowest common denominator, you get utter crap.

(Yes, I realize the G.I. Joe cartoon was meant for kids and therefore mass bloodshed was inappropriate. So was Gargoyles, but it was excellent, and it was produced by Disney of all things. "Appropriate for children" does not have to equal "stupid." It's just usually easier to produce that way.)

So this movie is basically a live-action cartoon. The stupid mid-80s cartoon where enlisted personnel could fly F-14s, everyone had lasers and parachutes, and basic science was ignored in the name of cool. I mean, ice floats on top of water, right? Rise of Cobra gets this fact wrong.

So if you have a hankering to watch some G.I. Joe without having your brains ooze out your ears (or scream in poisonous outrage at the screen, as I did) then I have two recommendations for you, depending on if you were a fan of the comic book or the cartoon.

If you liked the cartoon, then you will enjoy G.I. Joe: Resolute. It's basically the cartoon you remember, only with an intelligent plot, better art, decent voice acting, and action scenes that are probably closer to how you envisioned them as a kid. There are still a few funky artifacts left over -- Duke is still a sergeant yet commands officers, tandem-seat helicopters are piloted from the front seat, etc -- but at least it doesn't make Baby Jesus cry.



You can watch the entire series here.

If you were a fan of the comic book series (which was written by Larry Hama, a Vietnam veteran who tried to make the series as military-accurate as possible) then I suggest you go watch reruns of The Unit.

No, really. They have code names (Betty Blue, Snake Doctor); they are an elite unit which technically doesn't exist (303rd Logistical Studies Group); they often use cutting-edge technology; they fight terrorists. It really is a "real life" version of the G.I Joe team. Sadly, it's been cancelled, but it lives on in syndication.

Now you know... and we all know what knowing is.