I Hate To Say It, But…

I’ve been predicting that they would go full cartoon with this GI Joe reboot since the new Tom Clancy franchise was announced at Universal.

It’s just not possible for a studio to have two serious, special forces franchises going at the same time unless one goes super cinema-veritas like Zero Dark Thirty, and that’s not really Tom Clancy’s wheelhouse.

I said they would go kiddie with Snake Eyes and they did. 

Take a look…

Here is Scarlett with a Portmanesque Attack Of The Clones expression on her face. 

What’s with the plastic armor? Where is the texturing? Is this Rollerball 2002?

Where is the carbon scoring?

Did Scarlet just come from a gender reveal party? It feels like it.

Here’s Storm Shadow looking equally plastic:

I mean, I guess we should be grateful they didn’t deck him out in a Good Ninja costume from Halloween Express but what’s with walking around in public with swords? Are they going for a Kill Bill thing?

No, that’s not GI Joe. GI Joe is military, mud and blood!

I’m not sure who this is, I’ll just call her Yukio.

So this is not bad but it’s still sterile, like a training program from the Matrix. Where is the dirt? Where are bruises? Where is the blood?

Regardless of what you think about Marvel, people got fucked up in those movies. 

America’s Distressed Look

And no MCU character ever got like totally radical, dude!

That’s all very disappointing but possibly the worst crime Universal has committed against red-blooded GI Joe fans everywhere is foisting a flat-chested, nerd-dork Baroness on us:

How is she in anyway acceptable when I was raised to expect this?

The Unmasked Man

Oh, yeah. I forgot: taking off his mask and speaking goes against the entire concept of the Snake Eyes character. But then again, Universal went against the entire concept of the Snake Eyes character when they decide to cast an Asian fellow. 

Remember, folks, this is actual Snake Eyes:

 

I don’t know who or what this is…

I’m Not Nine Anymore

So live-action cartoons aren’t going to cut it.

Look, we don’t need every single nostalgia franchise to be Nolan-tier levels of seriousness but at least give some of them as much gravitas as the MCU!

It has to be possible to make movies that appeal to both adult man-babies (me) and kids who might play with action figures (my wife’s son).

I don’t know what that precise age is for action figure interest but unless George Lucas was right and it’s fucking three years old, then — please — can you adult up one of these franchises? One about ninjas and soldiers who try to kill each other with machine guns and katanas would have been the ideal place to start.

Take this shit as seriously as the fans, the fans with all the money, take this shit.

Snake Eyes will allegedly be released in theaters on July 23, 2021.

A trailer for the movie will drop this Sunday at 9 PM. I’ll post it here.

Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised.Â