Snake Eyes review

SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS: 

THIS “SNAKE” LACKS BITE! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES, MGM, AND ENTERTAINMENT ONE (HASBRO)

Henry Golding as Snake Eyes

 

            G.I. Joe fan favorite, Snake Eyes makes his solo feature film debut in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, the third live-action film based on the Hasbro G.I. Joe action figure line following 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and 2013’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation and spin-off/reboot revolving around the Snake Eyes character prior to when he became a Joe, not to be confused with a Nicolas Cage movie from the 90s…that was also distributed by Paramount. Anyway, as awful as the previous G.I. Joe movies are I do have a bit of a soft spot for them in a similar way I like the first Transformers movie and…half of the third movie, Rise of Cobra is a mostly pretty standard action movie with a few standout moments, most notably the chase scene in Paris with the warhead and Retaliation, I consider to be an enjoyably cheesy ride that is closer to the source material than its predecessor…not to mention casting Dwayne Johnson as the lead, you know it isn’t going to be taken seriously at all. 

            Now, we have this Snake Eyes which has been hyped up for a while now and after Hasbro’s critical and commercial success with the 2018 Transformers spin-off/reboot, Bumblebee, why not do something like that but with a beloved G.I. Joe character? The trailers looked promising and could potentially be just what the G.I. Joe franchise needs, some fresh blood…but then I saw the subtitle, G.I. Joe Origins and started to get skeptical because when you add the word Origins to a movie title like this, chances are you’re going to be in trouble (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, anybody?). 

            Well, because of the mixed reactions of the earlier G.I. Joe films, I pretty much had no expectations going into this movie and…despite the best efforts of Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians, A Simple Favor, The Gentlemen) as the titular character, this is one dull origin to such a cool character like Snake Eyes! While the film has some exhilarating action sequences, unfortunately it’s at the cost of a strong story and compelling characters. 

            The film follows a mysterious lone fighter (Golding), who after experiencing his father being killed when he was young is on a path for the blood. He comes across an ancient Japanese ninja clan known as the Arashikage which welcomes him and trains him to become Snake Eyes. 

However, with rising conflicts between him and his brother in arms, Tommy (Andrew Koji-Fast & Furious 6, Casualty, Warrior (TV series)) and the return of an old enemy who seeks revenge on the clan known as Kenta (Takehiro Hira-Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, Ace Attorney (movie), Lost Girls & Love Hotels) now working for the evil organization, Cobra as well as some secrets of his past being revealed, Snake Eyes will have his loyalties and skills tested as he follows the path to becoming a G.I. Joe operative. 

The film also stars Úrsula Corberó (Física o química, Isabel, La Casa de Papel), replacing Sienna Miller from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra as Baroness, Samara Weaving (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Ready or Not, Bill & Ted Face the Music), replacing Rachel Nichols as Scarlett, Iko Uwais (The Raid 1 and 2, Stuber, Wu Assassins) as Hard Master (Hehe, Hard!), Haruka Abe (Gorillaz, About Time, Cruella) as Akiko, Peter Mensah (Hidalgo, 300, Spartacus: Blood and Sand/Gods of the Arena/Vengeance) as Blind Master, Samuel Finzi (Ludwig II, The Captain) as Mr. Augustine, and Eri Ishida (Ultraman 80, A Chaos of Flowers, Wuthering Heights) as Sen.

Overall, Snake Eyes had the potential to be the film that saves the struggling G.I. Joe film series like what Bumblebee did for Transformers but alas, whatever unique ideas or bold storytelling choices it once had are thrown right out the window in favor of a bland, awkwardly-edited action movie with occasionally exciting sequences, but also filled to the brim with obnoxious camera work that make it difficult to appreciate the choreography, and characters that range from passable to being flat-out unlikable, even Snake Eyes himself, our protagonist is kind of a dick in this movie, no other way to phrase it! 

I know Snake Eyes is a man of very few words and Golding does try his hardest to make you care for the character through his performance, but seriously, he does things in this movie that do not feel like Snake Eyes and unlike characters such as Thor or Aquaman where they go through an arc and learn the error of their ways, Snake Eyes starts out as an unlikable character and ends the movie as an unlikable character (FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!), to the point where Storm Shadow (a member of Cobra) feels closer to being a hero than Snake Eyes is which should not be the case, I’m not that familiar with the G.I. Joe toys or cartoons, but if Snake Eyes’ origin is anything like this in those, then no thanks. 

The editing is dreadful and I’m not just talking about the shaky camera work during action sequences, I’m also referring to the pacing of this movie. A perfect example is the scene where Snake Eyes is a child and watching his father get killed and it’s immediately followed up with him as an adult cage-fighting, which is where the film should have started and maybe work in the backstory through flashbacks. 

The action sequences themselves at times are exhilarating to watch, but the way they’re filmed is anything but. Imagine Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon if Michael Bay was filming it, constant shaky-cameras that would be fine in small doses or in films that benefit from them like the first three Bourne films, but here they don’t make the action feel big, if anything, the shaky-cam takes you out of the experience. 

With that said, I enjoyed a few of the action scenes as well as some stand-out moments that are just plain stupid. Most notably, a scene where Snake Eyes falls in a snake pit and battles giant CGI snakes that look so bad, they make the giant anaconda from Anaconda or the snakes from Snakes on a Plane look like the T-1000, it’s such a strange, bizarre moment that I couldn’t help but laugh at and it made me wish we had more scenes like that. 

Snake Eyes could have been the movie that breathes new life into the G.I. Joe franchise, but instead it wastes what potential it once had on a dull and downright idiotic origin story that fails to do the character justice. I know I’m probably a small minority on this, but I think I’d rather watch Rise of Cobra again over this boring mess, as terrible as that movie is, at least it’s a bit of silly, light-hearted fun. 

If you’re a fan of G.I. Joe or Snake Eyes, then you might find something to enjoy with this movie, everyone else should just wait for Shang-Chi. I guarantee, the next Marvel Cinematic Universe movie will do its beloved character much more justice than this disappointing “Snake”.