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| Images courtesy Hasbro |
Let’s be clear. This movie isn't covering any new cinematic ground. It's not revolutionary. If you're a fan of a few genres, you've seen much of this movie already and that's definitely okay. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking. It just needs to be a good start. It took me a bit of processing to figure out why I was having a difficult time wrapping my head around it what my feelings were. The conclusion I came to is that I enjoyed it. It wasn't a waste of time. It's a fun story and does what it set out to do quite well, even at times, beautifully.
The movie stars Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Andrew Koji, Haruke Abe, Samara Weaving (The Babysitter), Iko Uwais (The Raid) and enough familiar faces that it's going to take too long to list. Directed by Robert Schwentke, Snake Eyes tells the story of (I know this is going to shock some people) Snake Eyes (the ninja of G.I. Joe fame). The acting in this is obviously not the best I've seen. Don't get me wrong. It's not terrible and it certainly (for me anyways) didn't detract from the movie, but lets be clear, no one is winning any Oscars for acting in this one.
Snake Eyes is going to feel very familiar to many of you that are fans of old school kung-fu, Samurai and the more modern stuff like The Raid. The action is going to feel just about right. There is a bit too much shaky cam for my liking but it doesn't feel disjointed or hard to follow. You can feel the impact of Iko Uwais to the film. His fingerprints are all over the action and it's a very welcome addition. Much of the sword fighting feels like the frenetic pacing of a modern martial arts film with the choreography of films more like the Samurai Trilogy. It's an interesting mix that at times misses but that more than made up for with the quality of the rest of the scenes. The film needed way more Scarlett and Baroness, which was the point, to leave us wanting more. It worked for me.
Some people are going to complain about the changes to the character's origin. I, for one, am not one of those people. The first part is totally overdone, feeling like it's just the standard these days, but the rest is a welcome change. Not to get political (even though it would be quite easy to do in a situation like this) because it doesn't have to be about that. Larry Hama the original creator of everything but the character design for Snake Eyes has said this is the idea he originally had and was turned down by Marvel and Hasbro way back in '82 or '83. It's easy to see why he'd want this origin story. When you watch it, you'll see why and we can all discuss it if you'd like.
Visually, the movie is perfectly executed as it uses colors to enhance mood and to define characters. That was fun to watch. The dichotomy of the ancient world inside a modern world was handled perfectly with costumes that would be worthy of most early samurai films. It's hard to take your eyes off the screen.
The story does fall a bit flat at times and feels like it needed to find its bearing again which for some seemed to be a bit frustrating. It felt that it lent a bit of breathing room between fight scenes. This movie did something the first two attempts at G.I. Joe completely failed to do. It created villains, real ones that you believed were actually as bad as intended. And there are a lot of them.
All in all, this is hopefully the start of what might be a brand new franchise that if it can pick up where this left off and do it even better, just might have some legs to it. The tag line "The best G.I. Joe movie yet" has had me laughing because, lets be honest, that's not exactly a high bar to try and hurdle. And yes, it really does succeed at being the best Joe movie to date. Give it a shot. Go in with an open mind and hopefully you'll have a good time. When you're done we can discuss the new version of his origin.
-Trevor West
