This movie is a jumbled mess. Stephen Sommers has directed better films in the past, but Rise of Cobra is just a schizophrenic nightmare.
Sommers' past films--notably The Mummy--managed to keep a comfortably brisk pace while still making the audience care about the admittedly-silly characters. G.I. Joe, on the other hand, seems content to completely focus on the action. There are many flashbacks that explain the backgrounds of several characters, but most of those scenes are more annoying than interesting.
The action scenes are decent, though there's nothing to rave about. The special effects are pretty terrible, though that might simply be because of "style." The entire film comes across as a live-action cartoon in nearly every possible way. However, there's a rather large amount of swearing and a violence for this to be considered a childrens' film, which is rather odd. One wonders what exactly the target audience was for this movie.
In all honesty, there's not much more to say about the film. It's not terrible, but it's not great.
4/10.
