| Snake Eyes (2021) | |
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Rating: 5.4/10 (44,267 votes) Director: Robert Schwentke Writer: Evan Spiliotopoulos, Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse Stars: Henry Golding, Andrew Koji, Haruka Abe Runtime: 121 min Rated: PG-13 Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime Released: 23 Jul 2021 |
| Plot: A G.I. Joe spin-off centered around the character of Snake Eyes. | |
Let me just kick off by saying I was never really a fan of GI Joe – either the toys, or the attempt to make it a franchise of films. The toys, when I was young, were generally thought of as the soldiers your mum bought for you when the shop ran out of Transformers/Turtles/MASK figures. You know, like Gobots! Whether that was different in the US, I don’t know, but they never caught on so much over here – even under the rebranding of Action Force. I still remember when they crossed over into the Transformers comics – a handful of issues that I hated as a result as these silly soldiers got in the way of my fun with mech! The films were decidedly average, and I’ve never felt any need to revisit – even terrible films I go back to to re-evaluate, but the Joe films were just so plain that there’s no need. So, all that said, I began watching this latest attempt at sparking some life into the franchise with an origin tale about one of the popular characters in the series – a fan favourite – the black clan ninja, Snake Eyes.
Following his backstory, which was shrouded in mystery throughout the cartoon, comic, and other materials over the years, this was a chance to explore some intrigue, and maybe show why he keeps his face covered (in the old lore it was due to disfigurement on an early mission). It would also, due to the nature of the backstory, be a chance for some cool martial arts fights.
Orphaned when his father is killed by an agent of Cobra, the young boy who keeps his identity secret behind the name Snake Eyes grows to be a fierce martial artist, and swears to bring vengeance on those who killed his family. He joins a ninja clan, with intention to betray them and steal a mystic gem for The Baroness and Cobra, in order to find his fathers killer – but he starts to doubt the path he took in this extremely formulaic and bland tale, that does nothing new.
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The biggest shame in all this is that amongst the names of cast members that I really couldn’t care for, Samara Weaving, whose recent offerings have been a pleasure, and a great rise to prominence for her, is bogged down in a pointless role that risks dumping her back down just as her star is on the rise.
A two-hour origin film that finishes with an attempt to tease future films, and which also does a Solo and feels we need some cunning reason for his name (his father’s killer uses dice to give people a chance to live or die – which rolled a Snake Eyes…because naming yourself after something that caused a family member to die is….erm….normal??) Maybe it is now time to accept that GI Joe will never be a franchise, no matter how much producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura loved the toys as a kid. They just aren’t that relevant to audiences today.
