d’oh joe!

Admittedly, one should not expect Schindler’s List from G.I.Joe: Rise of the Cobra. Is it too much to ask for just a modicum of sense though?

• Apparently, we can extract neural impulses from a recently deceased person and then convert them to images. We can then analyze them for how long they have “decayed” (whatever that is supposed to mean) and hence figure out how old they are. Based on commonly known heights of people, the length of their shadow in this extracted image and the aforementioned approximated time.. it is a relatively minor matter to apply spherical trigonometry to figure out where on the planet the image in the “memory” is from.
  No, seriously. They actually say all that.

• “McCallan, you will be Destro. Destroyer of worlds. And I will be.. the Cobra Commander. We shall..”
  [Duke] “Blah blah.. give yourself up..we have a huge-ass army waiting to whoop your ass..”
  “Erm, Destro, slight change of plans. We are going to go some kind of deeply underground floating jail, with our henchwoman in a position of deep trust and the American President under our control. Sound good? Don’t worry…this is just foundation for me to be able to yell ‘I will get you next time, GI Joe!’ in future movies. Constant disappointment and all that.”
• World destroying rockets are launched. 3 Joes watch in what can only be described as befuddled amazement. The only man who ever gets anything done in the movie at all, Snake Eyes, launches a rocket from some kind of snow vehicle to get rid of one of the missiles. The others watch in befuddled amazement at this too, not moving towards the other snowmobile that is sitting right there.
• 2 men in super-enhancing Iron Man suits don’t manage to do more than destroy half of Paris in their wake. In the meanwhile, Snake Eyes (who else?) while hanging onto the top of the runaway car that they are all trying to chase down, single-handedly ensures that the car actually comes to a stop with a resounding crash.
  I knew there was a reason that as a kid I always wanted the Snake Eyes GI Joe action figure.
• Why the Cobra characters are actually the people I was rooting for (unlike cartoons where I always rooted for Joes):
  • My girlfriend’s brother apparently died in battle, and she is mourning at his grave. What must I, the soldier and boyfriend, do? Turn up on a Harley with ultra-cool shades, look seriously in her direction. And then leave.
    And then wonder why she turned to evil/a world hating harridan.
  • I’m a trained ninja as a kid, and consistently beat this random vagrant kid who is training under my master. Every time I beat him, the master turns away sorrowfully. The one time that kid manages to down me, my master applauds him and calls him the best student.
    Why wouldn’t you want to kill the dumb-ass master who refuses to recognize you? And become a world-hating ninja?
  • I’m left for dead after an explosion by (1) my to-be brother-in-law, (2) my army, (3) my government. Hell they even bury nothing in my stead and pretend I’m dead, and my sister cries her heart out and not much else.
    I think I’m justified in wanting to kill ‘em all. Using green devouring nano-mites.
• A floor of deathly mines faces you, which will go off if you touch them with even the weight of a single quarter. Solution? Snake Eyes! He will walk over them hands over feet, hence somehow rendering himself weightless. They then expect him to painstakingly rewire the door-lock so that they enter – he shows them that life is very simple, by just short-circuiting the lock. Yes the main door to the Cobra stronghold can be short-circuited with a knife. Probably why he’s the only one ever doing anything in the damn movie. Respec’!
• Cobra attack on GI Joe stronghold. They pierce outermost underground entrance. Where is the Joe commander’s office? Right there! And of course, later on, when you have the villainess at gunpoint you must… stare at her with longing and not shoot her point-blank in the forehead for having killed most of the men you’ve known. I don’t blame you. That leather suit…

All my cribbing and ranting aside, it was actually loads of fun. For all the wrong reasons of course. But insane fun. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much at stupidity in a really really long time. Classic memories of my own GI Joe action figures came flooding back as I looked for the above picture. Epic battles had been fought by me on the floor of the bedroom, with the bed serving as the base which needed infiltration. He-Man had been roped in as an unwilling villain in the absence of a Cobra Commander figure. I’m wondering where all those figures are today. Somewhere deeply buried back home in Bombay? I hope so. And of course vague snippets of cartoons come flooding back too. Insane action. The Commander crying out that he would be back!

People used to enjoy GI Joe because the Joes never used insane technology. It was about heroism. And ninjas. But mostly heroism. No hot babes in body fitting leather suits (didn’t know Sienna Miller could look like that). No Iron Man technology. Good old fashioned army tactics and attacks. Which was the part Snake Eyes got spot on. Which is why he is only cool character at the end of it all. The only real Joe.

Hey, it got my mind off the insane crap-load of work that awaits to be done over the next week. Which is a good thing. More on that later. As always.