The bizarre casting for the GI Joe movie – Siena Miller? Joseph Gordon Levitt? Channing Tatum? Dennis Quaid? – had me intrigued in a sort of ‘Man, this is going to be a weird movie to watch’ kind of way, but never interested in the film as a film. And especially not interested in the film as some kind of juvenile nostalgia trip.
But one publicity photo shows up and all of a sudden my tune is subtly but surely changing. That image of Snake Eyes (go to Latino Review for the whole thing) actually kind of hit me in the Dumb Movie center of my brain. All of a sudden I remembered that Stevie Sommers had done Deep Rising before throwing away his cred on a bunch of absolute shit films. Maybe he can recapture that magic?
Of course Sommers has always had a keen eye for casting, and his productions LOOK great. That’s why it’s impossible to tell from early images just what this GI Joe film will turn out to be. Still, there’s no denying that this Snake Eyes pic works for me. Completely.
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Goddammit, now I have to see this. He even has the Arashikage clan symbol.
…and once again Devin displays his innate geekiness, despite his own seething contempt for fellow geeks.
Sweet jesus with a football bat! Love it. The emblem on the arm is not pratical but emblem on the sword: super awesome.
Devin, sorry, I'm going to post what I just threw into the TB at AICN: "Oh, people…haven't we learned? The Phantom Menace looked sweet. Matrix Reloaded looked like two pairs of tits. Hell, how highly did we rate King Kong based on what Peter Jackson had done previously? Now. This movie is directed by Stephen Sommers. This is the man who ass-raped his own franchise with The Mummy Returns. Or, to clarify: Sommers managed to do in two (2) years what it took George Lucas twenty-two (22) years to do. The image people are ejaculating over is the result of a good costume designer and still photographer. You want to drool over still images of people in costumes, I suggest that you buy Vogue. I'm not knocking Larry Hama, he owns the GI Joe concept and I admire his work, much as I admire Simon Furman for giving giant robots depth and pathos. That's fucking hard and is proof of serious chops. But, please, some sense? It's a movie from the director of The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing. Where's the McG level hatred? Sommers has more than earned it." C'mon, Devin, some consistency? Yeah, my weenie perked up at the sight of a real Snake Eyes but…yeah, you know. Just…c'mon…
Where's the hatred? If you're invested enough in GI JOE to get worked up about the movie not being good, there's something wrong with you. If you realize the movie is likely to be terrible and a waste of money and your time, but something about it seems like it could be at least not horrible, you're a regular normal human.
It must have killed Devin just to admit his interest being piqued.
Devin, I'm not knocking the interest piqued by the image, I even stated that in my original posting. What I am knocking is the idea of my interest being piqued by a director who burned every shred of leeway he had with The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing. The image is coool, no doubt, and I like it a lot. But I'm going to give credit to a good costume designer and still photographer (without even mentioning the talented artist who ORIGINALLY came up with this basic costume design) and a grudging shrug to Sommers for picking them to be part of this production team. This is the part where I'd like a paragraph break, BTW… 🙂 <p>Wonder if that worked?<p>I'm not expecting a great movie, not even a goood one — I just don't want to wake up in the morning with the taste of rohypnol in my mouth, and that's what happened with Sommers last two movies.
I actually enjoyed "Van Helsing," and I'm a fairly credible film snob. I'd heard how awful it was, so I went in with low expectations–maybe that had something to do with it. But I thought it was a fun popcorn flick. Nothing to write home about, but a nice way to spend an afternoon.
I think Snake Eyes looks pretty damn cool. Now let's see how they visualize Storm Shadow.
As for all the naysayers, as long as Shia LeSuck is nowhere to be found in this movie, I'll be in line on opening day.
So Devin…what, if not a juvenile nostalgia trip, makes that Snake Eyes pic a "wow" for you?
Nostalgia aside, I think it's just impressive that they got Snake Eyes' look right without feeling the need to "realize" the character. Remember how insane fanboys got when Optimus Prime wasn't a cab-over style truck, Bumblebee wasn't a Beetle, etc? This picture is pretty much a direct translation of the 1985 Snake Eyes to an actual person. Incidentally, Davin, if you haven't heard already, you can make multiple talkback posts by using different browsers.
Davin = Devin. Goddammit.
Wow. A ninja in black. Black rubber. That picture actually makes Snake Eyes look like the two ninjas from Blade 2. Fuck that picture.
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