Why GI-Joe: Rise of Cobra is actually a brilliant movie

I’m sure you’ve seen all the reviews trashing this film. Claiming that the plot is asinine, that the special effects are weak and that the general tone is a lot like Team America without the comedy.

But I believe that there is more to this movie than meets the eye, that what I’m about to tell you will give you a richer, fuller experience of GI-Joe, a nuanced, intelligent movie.

The film is not about a secret military unit who fight an evil arms dealing corporation… The film is an account of the hallucinations ‘Duke’ experiences as he dies.

Experience a journey into the depths of this man's soul.

‘Duke,’ played by Channing Tatum and his friend ‘Ripcord’ (I know…) are assigned to protect a case of top secret warheads in a convoy of Humvees. They are attacked by a hovering jet thingy that is somehow immune to bullets and armed with space lasers which very quickly trashes the Hummers. In the wreckage of their vehicle, Ripchord complains that his leg is snagged, and yet somehow Duke manages to pull him out before the jet destroys it completely. Plot hole? No my friend. Duke failed to pull him out, Ripcord died instantly and the trauma of watching his friend splattered over him coupled with loss of blood from the wreckage crushing him causes him to dream vividly as his life slowly ebbs away.

The special effects are not badly made; they perfectly convey the eerie sense of the ethereal world Duke has constructed. The terrible accents are not bad acting or writing, they are Duke’s blinkered and bigoted ideas of how these people actually sound.

And the plot itself becomes far more interesting once you look at it from this perspective.

Duke had promised to protect his fiancé’s little brother fours years before the film starts. He failed, and he couldn’t bring himself to face her. Even at her brothers funeral he didn’t have the courage to console her at the darkest moment in her life. Now Duke has to finally come to terms with his own mortality, and just as he succumbed to cowardice then, he does so now, dreaming a world where the little brother became Cobra Commander and she became the Baroness, one of his loyal soldiers. His bitterness and guilt are made perfectly clear to us, and we see him imagine a life where he gets to use the best toys weaponry, drive the best vehicles and battle against an enemy without moral ramifications while surrounded by unusually attractive people.

Why do you think Ripcord gets the girl? Duke is ensuring that he has a place in this world, and that he is happy. It’s the least his fallen friend deserves.

While forty minutes have passed in movie time, minutes have passed in Duke’s wounded state, his blood loss gets worse and the pain briefly shatters his idyllic fantasy, resulting in the destruction of the Joe’s base and the theft of the macguffin weapons he had been told to protect at the beginning. They try to stop the baddies with an ‘exciting’ chase through the streets of Paris. At the climax of this scene, Duke stands on a rooftop in front of Baroness, and he finally has to face his guilt. He cannot bring himself to hurt her, so he embraces his inner demons by diving into her getaway vehicle, the very jet thing that attacked him at the start of the film.

It was also his favourite toy during his unhappy childhood...

Thus begins his reconciliation of Baroness as it suddenly turns out she isn’t really evil… Her brother had been using mind control on her the entire time, and she’s suddenly decided to resist it. Contrived plot or pivotal moment in which Duke realises he can’t bring himself to hate her and that she deserves a place in his fantasy?

As per typical movie style, Duke manages to save the day and get the girl… to an extent. Even he knows that he could never truly redeem himself after what he has done, so she is put in prison until her mind control macguffin can be fully removed.

Yet even as the movie winds down to a close, there are still loose ends dangling, waiting to be resolved, and Duke will never have that chance. Because as the movie slowly fades to black, so does Duke’s consciousness as he finally passes out from loss of blood. Knowing he will never truly save the world and that he has ultimately failed.

So, GI-Joe: Rise of Cobra… vacuous special effects driven toy advert, or intense psychological thriller and journey into the mind of a conflicted and troubled individual? You decide!

Pictured from left to right: His fear of asian people, his regret and longing for his former love, his distrust of beaurocracy, the father he never had, his token black friend, how he wishes he looked, how he imagines french people are and a bad cockney accent with a minigun.

Tags: Action, GI-Joe, Movies, Rise of Cobra

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