Friday, August 7, 2009

Why GI Joe > Transformers 2: A Love Story


Okay, so, first of all, yes, duh, EVERYTHING is better than Transformers 2. We know this. But there are some very silly people out there who seem to have it in their minds that TF2 is a better film than its Hasbro pal, GI Joe. This...is simply not the case. And I am here to tell you why.

1. GI Joe has a plot

2. GI Joe has characters

3. GI Joe's action is pretty badass & enjoyable to watch

4. GI Joe trades Shia LePoop for Joseph Gordon Levitt (totally different roles, but JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT IS IN THIS MOVIE)

5. GI Joe trades talking robots for NINJAS

6. GI Joe trades racist robots for AWESOME NANOTBOTS THAT EAT THE WORLD

7. GI Joe doesn't have bizarre homoerotic tension between characters who should NEVER HAVE HOMOEROTIC TENSION (i.e. John Tuturro & Shia LePoops' college friend)

8. GI Joe manages to make its leading-lady-I-don't-like-in-anything somewhat likable. (Not the case in TF2.)

9. GI Joe has Channing Tatum's abs

10. GI Joe looks like it was FUN to be a part of. Dennis Quaid, Joseph Gorden Levitt, Sienna Miller, etc. hamming it up & having a great time

11. Remember how I said GI Joe has NINJAS? One of them is Ray Park.

12. Speaking of which, GI Joe has ACTUAL fight sequences, like, where people actually fight. I know! Crazy!

13. Even though you can see every plot twist coming a mile away, GI Joe HAS PLOT TWISTS. Not only that, but PLOT TWISTS THAT MAKE SENSE.

14. GI Joe doesn't have 87 "pieces of the all spark" whatever bullshit, when there is only supposed to be one, which all do the same thing, but don't, and one is randomly called the Matrix of Leadership. I HATE TRANSFORMERS 2.

15. GI Joe has suits that make you run really fast and jump really high and be really cool

16. GI Joe has Dennis Quaid saying "Knowing is half the battle"

17. GI Joe doesn't have ROBOT FUCKING HEAVEN

18. GI Joe features a random cameo by Brendan Frasier that made no sense, but was awesome anyway

19. GI Joe has two Losties, two The Mummy cast members (Frasier not included), that creepy ass Scottish dude and JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT

20. GI Joe has a badass hand to hand combat scene legit between a couple of 12 year old boys

21. GI Joe has this awesome plot device where whenever the characters need to figure something out, they miraculously just think of it, randomly, and it happens to be correct. I prefer this to TF2's method of needlessly adding an hour and a half to the movie, forcing the characters to run around the world trying to figure shit out the long way, shit that doesn't even actually make sense anyway AUGHHH IM SO ANGRY, MUST THINK OF GI JOE AND BE HAPPY AGAIN

22. GI Joe features two actual strong women! Who fight! And are awesome! Not one sole female character who happens to be an eternally naked damsel in distress! (Robot chick doesn't count. HELL no.)

23. GI Joe has a love story that isn't offensively underdeveloped & that you actually kind of root for (I'm referring to Anna & Duke, not Rip & Scarlett, though despite Rip & Scarlett's lack of chemistry, I still buy them WAY more than LePoop & Poop)

24. GI Joe sets up a sequel that gets you excited, not makes you wanna kill yourself

25. GI Joe is under two hours long

26. GI Joe is delightfully fun and a great time at the movies

26. GI Joe doesn't suck my left nut*

*I'm a girl and thusly don't have nuts, but that's simply the only way to say what I wanted to say. I hate you, Transformers 2

19 comments:

Chantaal said...

Damn, I think you just single handedly made me want to watch GI Joe.

Coop said...

What if I have not seen ROTF either? Is enjoyment of GIJOE exclusive to having the need to wash ones brain of ROTF?

LoquaciousMuse said...

If you like fun, silly action movies that aren't upsetting to sit through, then you will enjoy GI Joe. It's just a really good time. When we sat down we were like "Well, this is gonna suck!" so we let ourselves laugh at everything that was silly (including the fact that in action figure land, ice doesn't float...you'll see) and had a fantastic time!

Unknown said...

I just got back from seeing it, and this article encapsulates just about everything I wanted to say. LOVED IT. Campy, yes, but so true to the spirit it salved the wounds to my childhood caused by the A-Bay-mination that was TF2.

I love that JGL - amoung others, but I especially got it from him - was clearly having the time of his fucking life. That final, er, costume change - to avoid spoilers - the costume itself almost ruined the moment, but his sheer gleeful delivery, again, it was salvaged.

LoquaciousMuse said...

AGREED, Scott. JGL was having an effing ball and it was amazing. AMAZING.

Harry Matthews said...

And the bad Guy in GI Joe is DOCTOR WHO!

TotoroVsBatman said...

Just to make sure, how do you feel about Transformers? I am unclear...

Unknown said...

I have to strongly disagree here with almost every point made. Someone has to speak up for what a miserable waste of time this movie was.
First of all, if you hated Transformers 2, that's because it's a a bad movie. Plain and simple. Everyone knows they f-ed it up. But trying to compare dog shit to cat shit will just leave us all...well, smelling like shit.
Why don't you try a real debate here and compare GI JOE to Transformers 1? Well you couldn't because this movie sucked both of my nuts. (And I actually have nuts) Transformers (1) was a FUN movie, with actual comedy and at least half the cast ACTUALLY trying to act. Not GI-acting by saying a line in some awful cartoon voice you are half-committed to (You could see these actors just smirking from the salary they knew was in store on this one...every scene is like watching people distracted by what they were going to do with their new franchise movie paycheck) Since when is 'deciding' to be campy your excuse to just not act the slightest bit at all? You want to see a decision to be campy done right, go watch Bruce Campbell in anything or even the new Drag Me to Hell (and at least Shia LePoop doesn't phone it in).
The scenes that weren't action made the whole theater cringe and twist in awkward anticipation for at least some Sienna Miller push up bra action.
Yeah there were Lost actors and Mummy actors and Joseph GL--too bad the only good actors in the film were the ones who had 1 or 0 lines and the lead was some dumb ass frat boy (his 'abs' as one of your points proves how worthless he was...and he's supposed to carry us through this film).
I'm glad they had fun making it, and I actually sort of liked the one good action sequence in the film (the Paris scene--the only thing they show in trailers [with its main money shot--hopping over those missiles--stolen from...uh oh....Transformers!]) But if you are going to make an action movie of this scale, make your CGI watchable, please god. At least Transformers raised the bar visually in a way that no movie had ever achieved with those robots really looking like they were there.
This movie IS upsetting to sit through. Don't support it.

EruditeChick said...

@Rob I think the primary issue at hand is intent.

I personally enjoyed Transformers 1, it was lots o' fun, but word of mouth alone has prevented me from seeing RoTF because I refuse to waste money on that miserable an experience. RoTF was a serious attempt at a sequel- and from too many corners to discount I have heard that the comedic scenes are painful, stupid, awkward and not funny. Whereas the serious action sequences, most of which didn't feature robots, were impossible to follow, jumping off of events that made less than no sense, and incapable of performing even basic math problems. Yet it was touted as some huge, triumphant event film, the worthy answer to an acclaimed blockbuster. Well, thanks but not thanks.

G.I. Joe, from every single person who's seen it except you, I have heard is fast, fun to watch, campy and straightforward. It's stupid, but it's self aware, and it doesn't attempt to make itself out to be anything more than a dumb, old fashioned, balls out action flick. When I saw the trailer, I turned to the person next to me and said, "Not a chance in hell." Now, with the reviews in from all my friends, I fully plan on seeing it.

Because T:RotF sounds like a jaw clench, eye-scratching-out, insulting painfest, and G.I.Joe sounds like a lot of fucking fun.

Unknown said...

Hey EruditeChick, maybe you should actually SEE my movie before just assuming that GI Blow is better based on the reviews of other people.

This is a perfect example as to how reviews warp someone's frame of reference - and influence their opinion of a movie - before even seeing the movie.

For example, I didn't think I was that good in Holes while we were filming it, but it got pretty decent reviews, and then I went to go see it with Rihanna (while we were dating) and I was like, oh yeah, I am pretty good in this movie.

Seeing only one of these two movies and then comparing them to each other would still be half-assed. Not seeing EITHER and then comparing them to each other makes no sense.

LoquaciousMuse said...

Flame war! Flame war! Eruditechick just knows to trust in the Muse. :)

EruditeChick said...

@Shia

But I'm not comparing the two movies, I'm comparing the reviews of the two movies and my initial impression of each. I will be unable to compare the two movies for a few months since I refuse to spend a single dime on Transformers.

Although, I'll tell you what, Beef: You promise to stay the fuck away from the Y: The Last Man movie and not only will I see Bay's crapgasm, I'll buy it on Blu Ray.

NiVeKeR14 said...

I happened to LOVE transformers 2. I liked the story and the action. I even laughed my ass off. GI Joe on the other hand, I have no intention of seeing. To each their own I suppose.

Teddy Diefenbach said...

I have to agree with Rob on this one, and I'll just make two points.

First, the CG in GI Joe is just terrible. Cheap, cheap, bad. Honestly, a few sequences were on par to me with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie from 1995. In a movie that relies primarily on CGI and fight sequences, that's a MAJOR flaw, and the ninja fights aren't anything I haven't seen better in about a dozen Jet Li movies or, now that I think about it, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie from 1995.

Second, there was nothing GI Joe about that movie. If you changed all the names and removed the one "knowing is half the battle" line, I would never know it was GI Joe. At least in Transformers, you get the geeky nostalgic love you came for. Change his name to Mr. Truck Robot, and I can still tell that, kickass, that's Optimus Prime.

Okay, it's a campy Hasbro license. Phone in the acting, waste good actors and cast some miserable ones, but at least give me my money's worth in SFX and a movie that takes full advantage of its heritage. I got that from Transformers 2. Not from GI Joe.

LoquaciousMuse said...

I didn't mind the bag CGI at all. I'd take shitty special fx over like, sure the robots look real, but they are also racist and go to heaven and disappear at oddly inconvenient times.

Obviously other ninja fights in real kung fu movies are better, like, no question, but my point is that GI Joe HAS ninjas who FIGHT and I like actual fighting in my action movies, not Megan Fox running around in skimpy clothing while a robot tried to kill her with his ballsac.

But also, I hate TF2 and ya'll don't, haha, so I think it's just a fundamental difference of opinion.

But also, let's clarify that I do think GI Joe is amazing if you go in with the attitude of, let's have fun and laugh for 2 hours. We did that with Knowing and then were like ooo, this is actually kinda quality, and then things happened and Knowing became simultaneously terrible and amazing.

I'm so hungover.

LoquaciousMuse said...

Oh yeah my point was, it isn't ACTUALLY a quality movie, that just didn't affect how much I enjoyed it, because at least things happened!

Remember the part in Knowing when Nic Cage hits the tree with a baseball bat for no reason? I love that part. Weeee!

LoquaciousMuse said...

You guys gotta read this review from Aint it Cool cause I think he does a really good job of explaining!


http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41974

Karen said...

LOL. I fell asleep at the end of GI Joe though. But my friend said the action in the beginning was better anyways. I'll wait to catch the rest on DVD.

Jojo P. said...

This action movie is made for grown ups and is much more enjoyable.



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