G.I. Joe : The Rise of Cobra

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I grew up in the '80s and owned more than a hundred G.I. Joes. I was obsessed for the better part of my childhood with the action figures. Needless to say, I watched the show as if it held the secrets to the universe. So when G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra feature film was announced, naturally I vomited on myself. Nothing good can come from dredging up '80s nostalgia. What's next, bringing back Molly Ringwald's awkward dance moves from The Breakfast Club? What was worse, I knew that a summer feature meant new toys (that were lesser versions of my '80s collection), some form of fast food joint tie-in, and a new videogame. Cartoon-to-movie translations don't have a great track record for quality, but attempts at cartoon-to-movie-to-game translations fare even worse. Still, I held out hope that the folks at EA could come up with something at least decent. They did not. G.I. Joe is an unattractive, repetitive and humorless videogame with only a few bright moments. The core idea for G.I. Joe is sound. Create a modern-day version of Contra with the Joes as the central figures. The first issue with this is that EA is hampered by the feature film.