We have had two previous G.I. Joe related films that were badly written, poorly acted, and felt nothing like the originals characters. This movie adaptation (which should be ashamed of itself just in general, but mostly for taking the name of our beloved mute ninja) was worse than its predecessors—believe it or not.

Like a lot of people, I grew up on the TV show in the late eighties, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero based off of the Hasbro toy line. To be fair, there are discrepancies between the characters in the show and those from the comic books, worst of all there being no romantic relationship with Snake Eyes and Scarlett (my two favorite characters, along with Storm Shadow) or any ninja rivalry. Somehow, Snake Eyes ends up with a wolf and Duke gets two women in the show. I think Duke wrote the script for that episode. Anyway, the old TV Show, in all its campiness portrays the characters as more like the comics than any film adaptation. In the cartoon they are capable, all American, upright, friendly, yet fierce fighters (the women too.) My oldest brother always said you couldn’t get any more diverse than the original G.I. Joe. They have women, Native Americans, Asians, African Americans, Ninjas, etc.… And they all are individualistic in their attire and weapons, each representing their own culture or tailoring things to their distinct personalities and backgrounds. Take a look at the spoken words from the TV show theme song, which sums up what G.I. Joe is about:

G.I. Joe is the codename for America's daring, highly trained, special mission force.
Its purpose: To defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

The movies butchered everything G.I. Joe stood for. Let’s dive into how Snake Eyes Origins failed miserably in every way. 

Not Snake-Eyes (for lack of a better name) as the worst protagonist ever:

-All mystery and mystique is lost from the character:

·   The character from the comics got his nickname due to the color of his steely eyes. Henry Golding’s, Snake Eyes, got the name for simply being “unlucky.” The film is already lacking in attributing the same weight to their character as to the original.

·   I had issues with the idea of seeing the character’s face, but we do get glimpses of it in the comics so that wasn’t something that broke me. From minute one I didn’t recognize our main character. He has the most stereotypical backstory. His father is killed by “bad guys” and he’s left to fend for himself. In the comics, the real Snake Eyes had no such backstory. We don’t know anything about Snake Eye’s childhood. We only know he was in the Army and when he got out he was given the news that his twin sister and parents died in a car accident on their way to meet him at the airport. They should have stuck with this as it was both tragic and unique. I don’t recognize the angsty Snake Eyes getting into cage match fights for money.

-He is a totally unreliable, selfish jerk:

·  The Snake Eyes of the comics is driven by patriotism, selflessness and a care for his comrades.  This character is motivated by revenge, enough to work with terrorists and betray the very people who trusted him.

·  Storm Shadow trusts him, brings him into his home, vouches for him against Akiko who rightly doesn’t trust the rogue fighter, and has him trained when he clearly isn’t worthy. (The sacred anacondas confirm this but no one seems to take notice). When Storm Shadow became blood brothers with him I had a sinking feeling our main character was going to sink even lower. His response is to go for the sacred jewel of the Arashikage, Storm Shadow’s clan (we’ll get into the senselessness of the jewel later).

·  He stabs not only Storm Shadow in the back, who’s been nothing but good to him, but also Akiko after she tells him a man betrayed her once before. He does literally every low down thing you could think of. He hands the jewel over to terrorists, which he learned earlier on in the film killed a bunch of people. He doesn’t care; he still wants his revenge. When given the opportunity to take his revenge (which nobody cares about at this point) he doesn’t do it. He goes to help after the clan is being attacked (which is all his fault). So basically, the hero of the film is the one who caused all the trouble and betrayed all of the actual protagonists.

(On a side note, Henry Golding, prior to this role, was solely known for romantic comedies. Either he wasn’t the best fit for this film or they didn’t give him much to work with. Maybe they thought he was charming in this role, but personally, his character felt a little flat.)

Every other G.I. Joe Character is no good either:

-Storm Shadow is likeable enough and could have been true to character, except he’s more noble and worthy to be a Joe (whatever that means in this movie) than Snake Eyes is. What didn’t make any sense was why no one else saw this?

·   Snake Eyes betrays him and he rightfully doesn’t trust him afterwards. Akiko, for reasons I don’t understand, forgives Snake Eyes everything.

·   Then, possibly the most ridiculous thing in the entire movie is when Storm Shadow uses the jewel to kill Kenta whose been destroying the dojo, and because of this his own Grandmother banishes him! Not Snake Eyes who stole the stinking jewel in the first place and gave it to the enemy to slaughter us! Make sense of this if you can cause I can’t. (I also have to mention the sacred anacondas supposedly got drunk at the end of the film and declared Snake Eyes worthy because he went back to help the Arashikage clan. This one deed, I guess, makes him worthy and undoes all the previous wrong, but Storm Shadow’s one bad deed cancels out his honorable behavior the entire movie.)

The previous films at least attempted to deliver when it came to Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. The other characters may have failed but they tried with these two. In this movie the characters had unworthy portrayals.

-Scarlett has one fight sequence with shaky cam and no personality. She represents G.I. Joe who offers a job to a lying, backstabbing, Snake Eyes who conspires with terrorists. What G.I. Joe is this? The first official mission she gives him is to hunt down Storm Shadow. I think G.I. Joe and Cobra have switched roles in this movie.

-Baroness, whose field is Intelligence…*rolls eyes, her big plan for Cobra is to acquire a jewel that can only shoot one blast at a time (as a weapon it’s no better than a handgun).

Personally, I thought Storm Shadow should have teamed up with her and killed everyone else at the end of the movie just to make things interesting and redeem themselves, but that’s just me.

The action in this movie was garbage:

-My sister and I were laughing at the scene where Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes were trying to escape from a thousand dudes with Katanas. It was a comical fight scene made worse when they skewer the car like a porcupine with their Katanas in an attempt to kill them. Clearly, someone didn’t know how Katanas work.

-When Kenta is attacking the clan with the sacred jewel no one stops him, even though the jewel has to be held and pointed directly at its target and works the same as any gun. No on tackles him or is able to shoot him or anything. It takes all of them (all these highly trained special mission force people) to stop one dude with a magical rock.

 -They also went through all the trouble to get Iko Uwais, famous for being a stuntman and fight choreographer, and he didn’t get a single good fight scene.

In the other two G.I. Joe films, we got some good ninja action due to Ray Park (Snake Eyes) and Lee Byung-hun (Storm Shadow). In this movie (All about Ninjas!), we got nothing. Not a single so called G.I. Joe movie has yet to follow the comics. If they had they’d be better off. The original is always best. If you haven’t read Snake Eyes: The Origin, Parts I and II—check it out.

Don’t even watch the movies, read the comics.

-Hannah