Top 30 Greatest Movies of All-Time # 10
Title: G.I. Joe: The Movie
Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away: The funny thing about this movie is that it has three voice actor names in the opening credits. It stars Don Johnson as Lt. Falcon, Burgess Meredith and Golobulus and Sgt. Slaughter as Sgt. Slaughter. It never fails to amuse me when it says “Sgt. Slaughter as Sgt. Slaughter” instead of maybe “as himself” or something simpler.
Introduction: Basically, since I was born, I was into G.I. Joe. It was one of my interests that has never really changed that much over time, as I’ve always had at least some interest in what the Joe team was doing (Yes, even during the dreaded Sigma 6 days) When I say this is one of my earliest memories, in ways it is, but also you need to know that I am 100% completely honest when I admit the following: One of my earliest (and best) childhood memories is going to an independently owned toy store called the Play Pen in Meriden, CT and having my parents buy me single carded G.I. Joe figures for a dollar each. I kid you not. I remember one year for Christmas, my grandma got me a number of them all wrapped up in the same box and I was so excited. I remember having friends come over and we’d put the Zartan figure on the window ledge in the sun and watch as his color changed with the sun. I also remember for some reason having a hissy fit during church one day and being told if I behaved we could go to Play Pen afterwards. I did, and that was when I got my first Shipwreck figure (for only a dollar!) The Play Pen closed down a long time ago, with toy stores becoming chains and the world becoming what it has. It turned into a chain video store for a while, but that went away too. There used to be a Burger King in that plaza that also held days of my youth, but they tore that down to build… another Burger King. Now there is a Walgreens in that plaza and it’s all I remember from my last visit to Connecticut. What does this have to do with this movie exactly? G.I. Joe is in my roots, man.
Location: It’s animated, so it doesn’t really matter as much as other movies. They could have done the animation anywhere, but it was probably done in Japan or China. What’s worth noting in this section is that (spoiler alert) this is the only animated movie that will be contained in my Top 30 list. That has to really say something about it.
Plot: This movie offers one of the, now many, versions of the Cobra Commander origins story. Cobra Commander was working a lab when it all went terribly wrong. Haha, he starts turning back into a snake in this movie and his constant pleading of “I was once a man…. A maaaaaaaaaaannnnnn” becomes funnier every time you watch it. It’s also great to mock Serpentor with his “Cobra la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la” war cry. So nearly every character is in this thing, even if you just see them telling a story halfway through to someone else. This also introduces a large number of new characters, most noted amongst them are Tunnel Rat, Big Lob, Law & Order (who are basically just a rip off of Mutt & Junkyard) and Jinx. One last thing that has nothing to do with the plot that you probably don’t care about is that up until only recently, Big Lob never had a figure before. Hey, are they still making the 25th Anniversary series of 3 ¾ inch Joes? If so, a lot of characters from this movie need to be made and soon!
This movie is about the Joe team basically doing something to fight the evil of Cobra. In a way, it’s like taking what is normally a twenty two minute episode of the show and dragging it out across the course of a near hour and a half movie, but at the same time there is so much more to it than just some big name actors and new characters coming in. One of the most interesting facets of this movie is that rather early on Duke (the main hero for quite some time) takes a snake to the chest courtesy of Serpentor. Not only do they show blood, but Duke is put in serious danger of dying. Throughout the entire series up until this point (at least as much as I can recall), no one ever really had their life put in danger this closely, as being captured was about the worst thing that could happen to them. Sure, they’d sometimes, say, take a submarine down too far and if they didn’t make it up in time they’d die, but they never said “die” or “death” it was just about “running out of air” or something similar. This was one of the first times that they took death so seriously, even as General Hawk turned to the camera and said “Yo Joe” somberly as he shed a tear to end the scene. Deep stuff. Deep, deep stuff.
Acting: Don Johnson is all right, but Sgt. Slaughter steals this show hands down.
Production: While it is a step above the animated series up until this point in time, it is not nearly advanced as the cartoons these days. For that, I really like it though. One of my biggest problems with G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra as a movie was that it was entirely too dark. For something like The Punisher, yeah, make him dark. But for G.I. Joe? Where are the colorful characters and laser guns? G.I. Joe was always so bright and the Rise of Cobra movie just failed to deliver that. Even the Transformers live action movies had a certain brightness to them. While I suffered through the Sigma 6 and Valor vs. Venom days of G.I. Joe and the CGI (yuck), I still think this is how G.I. Joe looks best when depicted on screen. Their new show and Resolute are not that bad, but this is how I prefer my Joes (and Cobras) to look, thank you.
Sex/Nudity: No, no, no. But watch the first Lt. Falcon scene very closely. Is it me, or are his eyes drawn to stare at that woman’s breasts? Also, there is a scene where Zarana undresses (into a swimsuit) that can be a bit too much for younger viewers.
Special Effects: It’s all lasers and what not, you know, animation. I think if I could ever sit down with a G.I. Joe Genius, like say Larry Hama, and ask him only one question, my question would have to be this. I know there are a lot of things I want to know about the G.I. Joe universe (like for a kids show, why do all the women have such big boobs and revealing clothing), but it comes down to one main point. If anyone knows whether or not this has been addressed before somewhere, please send me an answer at stormshadowfan4life@aol.com. My question would simply be this: If Roadblock couldn’t think of something to say that rhymed, would he just keep his mouth shut? (Honestly, I feel Roadblock would have so many more lines in general if he didn’t have to rhyme all of them)
Overall Verdict: I owned this movie for the longest time on VHS, in a bubble case, and watched it non-stop. It wasn’t until only recently I got this movie for Christmas on DVD. Then, several months later, an anniversary edition was released on DVD and I saw it at Walmart. The funny thing is, I remember when G.I. Joe used to be on in the morning five days a week (because I watched it). I remember when they broke this movie down into five parts and would air it across the course of a week. It was always awkward when they didn’t start it on a Monday. It was funny, because we owned the VHS as a kid, but I watched it during the week anyway, broken down in parts with commercials because I just always watched G.I. Joe at that time. It is so unlike anything I would do now. But one of the best things I remember about watching this too is that in order to follow along from day to day with the different parts, the movie was hosted by the real life Sgt. Slaughter. Those were the days.
The List Thus Far:
(10) G.I. Joe: The Movie
(11) Billy Madison
(12) American Splendor
(13) Last Days
(14) Mallrats
(15) The Dark Knight
(16) Bottle Rocket
(17) Tank Girl
(18) The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl
(19) Big Trouble
(20) The Devil’s Rejects
(21) Raiders of the Lost Ark
(22) Beetlejuice
(23) Escape From L.A.
(24) Howard the Duck
(25) Cabin Fever
(26) Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
(27) Uncle Buck
(28) Donnie Darko
(29) Demolition Man
(30) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
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