The Stream: Almost beyond corny at times

The Big Screen: Some pretty good fight sequences

The Final Bill: Somehow it found a way to make a cool character corny and untrained

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Robert Schwentke
Writers: Evan Spiliotopoulos(screenplay by), Joe Shrapnel(screenplay by), Anna Waterhouse(screenplay by)
Stars: Henry Golding, Andrew Koji, Haruka Abe
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour 57 minutes
Production Companies: Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Skydance Media
Platform: Released in theaters July 23, 2021

GO Streamers! I got bored this evening and gave in to watching a movie I was actively avoiding, Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins. Now, the movie is just called Snake Eyes but let’s see what this movie about a beloved series has for us. Of course, this is clearly about the origin of the GI Joe character, Snake Eyes, before he became a Joe. Plain and simple. Let’s see what we got.

First, this is a stark departure from the story we’ve heard of Snake Eyes. Whether comic book or previous movies, this is just different and it’s quite confusing. I, now, understand why people have been smashing into this movie over the last two weeks. I’ll put it like this, the producers and director of this film found a way to make a really, cool and masterful character into an untrained Average Joe fighter. I actually don’t know what they were thinking during writing, then during production and then even during post-production. I’m assuming people really were like, “Yeah, we knocked this out of the park.” Or, were they thinking, “I don’t know about this… I hope people just show up during this pandemic out of desperation.” No, seriously, there were several points in this movie where I thought why are they forcing him to go in this direction. I, now, understand that it was in order to set up other characters and a sequel. Will there even really be a sequel or other Origin films? Nevertheless, the storyline made sense, it was just obvious, stereotypical and corny – almost offensively so at a couple points. For example, there is a moment towards the end, similar to Endgame, where there is a “lady power” team up and it was just soooo corny! I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the three most unimportant characters of the movie. Comparatively to the other GI Joe movies, this movie didn’t have the purposefully corny/campy/funny feel. I actually think that in a way hurt how the viewers see the film. Had this been a bit more campy, I would have given certain scenes a break instead of a hard rolling my eyes.

Other than that, the main cast was pretty good, except my guy Peter Mensah felt so out of place as the Blind Master. His performance wasn’t poor, I mean, he’s played this same role a few times before, but he’s definitely the black sheep of the film, literally. I wish they had expanded upon him just a touch to make him make sense in that place where they don’t let outsiders. But, I digress. Shout out to my guy, Iko Uwais, who also wasn’t featured enough but entertained while he was around. Henry Golding was pretty solid as an action actor, but I will say his accent slipped in at times and I’m not even sure whether his character was supposed to be a Brit. The minor cast, characters like Scarlett and Baroness, are so whack and forgettable it was painful.

As you can tell, I was pretty annoyed with this flick. I’ve never walked out on a movie, but this was the closest I’ve been. Not because the movie was bad, but because I was over it even though I knew the movie was about to end. That says a lot. Snake Eyes has entertaining fights but even those felt corny at times. The movie is between a single popped kernel and a handful because the movie is not only just average but it made me roll my eyes a few too many times to say watch if someone else wants to. So after this hits a streaming service, check it out after a good amount of scrolling.