Initial Conditions

First Transformers and now this- Hollywood’s fad of making films out of 80’s toy franchises and cartoons continues unabated [edit: apparently GI Joe predates the 80's, but it was most definitely a cartoon in that decade] and to be honest, they’re all pretty much the same.

The plot (if you look hard enough) is that the bad guys (led by Christopher Eccleston whose accent sounds like Noel Gallagher doing a bad impression of Billy Connolly) have made some biological weapons and want to launch them at (surprise, surprise) Washington and Moscow to Eccleston to become ruler of the world, and the good guys (the GI Joes) have to try and stop them. There are a couple of pretty tedious back stories thrown in too, but the main point of the film is that things get blown up. A lot. There are many, many similarities with Team America World Police, most of which, I presume are unintentional.

If you’ve seen the trailer you’ll know that one (rather large) thing in particular gets blown up (in fact, 90% of the film is things getting blown up). This isn’t a problem in itself, except an extended section of the movie revolves around them trying to stop the aforementioned happening. Of course, you know what’s going to happen so all that feels a bit wasted, pleasant as it is to watch curious movie geography in action.

It’s definitely better than Terminator Salvation and Transformers for me, but at the same time, it’s not very good. It’s quite funny in places, though probably not intentionally (one particular bit where somebody has to speak “celtic” is highly unintentionally amusing). It’s been set up for a sequel now too, so we’ve more of this to look forward to. Yay.

I hope this ’80s revival doesn’t last much longer, or else we’ll have Polly Pocket, Thundercats, M.A.S.K. (though no-one other than me seems to remember this) and My Little Pony movies as all of these things would be terrible.