'G.I. Joe' reviews: How bad can they get?

You may remember that we've been tracking the strange phenomenon of the "G.I. Joe" reviews, which at one time earlier this week--thanks to Paramount's policy of allowing only fanboy enthusiastics like Harry Knowles to see the movie--were registering in the high 80s at Rotten Tomatoes, rivaling the kind of numbers that great films like "The Hurt Locker" and "The Hangover" have been getting.

But sadly, now that the film has opened and rank and file reviewers are getting a look at the goods, "G.I. Joe's" numbers are plunging faster than the stock market on Black Friday. At last glance, Rotten Tomatoes has the movie at a 41 fresh rating--though it may have dropped even lower by the time you read this. Let's face it, the only thing worse than making a fussy film critic sit through a bad movie is making a critic suffer through a bad movie with a noisy opening-day audience of crazed metalheads and wannabe soldiers of fortunes.

A fair barometer of the critical reaction comes from Time's Richard Corliss, who after enduring a public screening, wrote: "As you sit through the movie, you can feel your IQ drop minute by minute."

But why bother seeing the movie at all? For the Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern, not seeing is believing. When Paramount refused to screen the film for him, the critic called the studio's bluff by writing a review anyway, basing his opinion on a viewing of the film's trailer. This has to be a first for a critic at such a widely respected publication. So far there has been precious little consternation, which I take as a clear sign of just how little regard the elite media has for the cynical way studio summer films are made and marketed. 

Morgenstern's justification? As he wrote:

Why do I have to see it to review it? People debate the merits of movies they haven't seen all the time--especially on the message boards of the Web, where vast numbers of fanboys, apprentice fanatics and professional grousers turn an endless supply of baseless assumptions into groundless conclusions. At first I felt shut out, but then I realized ... the studio has set me free to reach my own conclusions--not quite groundless but close--on the basis of the "G.I. Joe" trailer.

Needless to say, Morgenstern concluded that the movie was a stinker. But was he being fair to the film, even if it had every appearance of being an unbelievably dumb exercise in mindless violence, by reviewing it without seeing it? Or was that a defensible act by a critic who had been deliberately kept away from seeing the movie? I'm torn between my regard for Morgenstern and my concern that this sets a bad precedent.

Does anyone have a strong opinion, yea or nay?  

 

Above, Byung-hun Lee as Storm Shadow and Ray Park as Snake Eye in "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra."  Photo credit: Frank Masi / Paramount Pictures

 

PREVIOUSLY: WILL 'GI JOE' REALLY GET BETTER REVIEWS THAN 'THE HANGOVER'?

Comments

[Kurt]

Reviewing something you have not seen is nonsensical. If the "review" consists of one's opinion of the trailer it would be fair to say that based on the trailer (which one would assume would be the studio's attempt at putting a best foot forward) the movie does not look promising. However, a review by its terms contemplates (in my feeble mind) that you have actually seen what you are reviewing and not just small bits of it.

[Racicot]

Sounds like a lot of critics are getting their granny panties in a bunch.

Would a Restaurant Reviewer be *made* to sit through a meal at McDonald's on a Saturday afternoon and have to report on it?

Then why whine about popcorn movies?

I'll see G.I. Joe, not because of Ain't it Cool or the Wall Street Journal (for eff sakes like c'mon?), but because the toys were a part of my Canadian youth and because Stuart Beattie (an Australian!) is the writer.

p.s. I'll bet my Friday Night Movie Ticket that The Hurt Locker represented more of a *G.I. Joe* gung-ho, b.s. bravado than our weekend opener up there. So grating.

[Ethan]

THIS MOVIE WAS SWEET, anyone who thinks otherwise, is either retarded, or it isn't their kind of movie, which in that case they have no right in bashing it...

I think that we need new critics, because as we all saw from Transformers 2, it is quite ridiculous on how bad the REVIEWS are and how AMAZING the MOVIE is.

[Anon]

It's like a restaurant critic writing a scathing review of McDonald's. No way, you mean GI Joe isn't chock full of Oscar-worthy performances and life-changing cinematic moments!? Oh no, it's fast and loud and is more like watching a video game?!! Gee this is all news to me, maybe I shouldn't go see it after all. Thanks, film critics!

[David]

I believe your article does raise a good point, and one wonders that with the financial success of "Transformers 2" and if "GI Joe" does well if this practice of not screening potential critical bombs which are forecasted to do well commercially will continue. However the fact fact that Mr. Morgenstern reviewed "GI Joe" without seeing it could lead to a troublesome trend. The difference between fanboys and movie critics is that movie critics are paid to do a job which is to review movies and fanboys are not paid to enthusiastically support a movie. If you are paid to review a film that is what you should do, if you don't want to watch the movie along with the masses then don't bother writing a review. Despite the fact that fanboys make their opinions based on trailers a professional critic can not write their review on a two and a half minute trailer.

[Russell Lee]

I think that if you are a professional film critic, you should see the film you are reviewing. If you do not see the film (either out of circumstance or inclination) then it seems that one should not review the film.

But then again, news reporters often report on events which they have not witnessed personally but based their accounts on eye-witness reports so maybe Mr. Morgenstern has a point.

If this method works, then I hope Mr. Morgenstern will apply the approach to other works as well - I wonder how one might review THE SIXTH SENSE for example, on the basis of its trailer.

But to save Mr. Morgenstern's time, here are a few points in the film that he perhaps would not have gathered from the trailer:

1. One of the bad guys has a face/body transformation that turns him into a carbon copy of the US President (Jonathan Pryce). In the closing scene of the film, this fake US President sits down at his desk in the White House. Naturally a set up for the next GI JOE film.

2. Sienna Miller - an embodiment of the mother and the whore - is saved at the end and admitted to a lab facility where the nano-ants that have been the cause of her bad (whore) behavior will be extracted. In a sequel she could return as the good girl (mother) that she was when engaged to Duke (Channing Tatum) four years before the events depicted in the film.

3. Why is it that the Asian guy in all Hollywood films is always faintly gay, and always the bad guy (in this case Korean superstar Lee Byung-hun)? This is the 21st century for goodness sake, and not the 20th century era of Fu Manchu (or are we still stuck in racist stereotypes?) !

4. The whole film can be seen as allusion to an intoxicating session in a S&M house - the characters wear quite macho leather-type outfits (even the foxy Rachel Nichols whose battle suit snugly shows her encased breasts); the evil doctor (Joseph Gordon Levitt) wears an oxygen mask and sounds like Dennis Hopper in BLUE VELVET; and all the goons wear masks and head-gear that makes them look like denizens of some domination dungeon. This is all brought to a head at the end where the evil doctor, demanding to be called "Commander," puts on a very phallic looking silvery head mask - an image that gives greater dimensionality to the sub-title of the film "The Rise of Cobra". Can you get anymore S&M than that? A movie inspired by Action Dolls? Hardly (or perhaps at some sub-conscious level of Freudian play - very deeply).

[Jenni]

What a fun movie! Action, adventure, and a cast that was enjoyable to look at for 2 hours. The critics make me wonder, What happened to a movie being fun? Isn't summer supposed to be the time for the bigger-than-life action flick? Critics who insult this movie are snobs and need to re-evaluate what is honestly box-office gold.

[grondzero]

THE MOVIE WAS AWESOME!!! SHUT THE HELL UP CRITICS.

[todders]

before you see GI Joe, you should watch this:

http://blog.digitalfuntown.com/dft-blog/2009/8/6/be-careful-where-you-hide-the-salami.html

[Kay]

The film was truly awful in a beyond belief kind of way. But whether it was or not, I personally think Morgenstern has justification in doing what he did. Studios are making enough films that diminish rather than challenge the intelligence of the public (G.I. Joe belonging in the former category), and not screening either type for the professionals is just plain cowardice. It's apparent that the executives still don't believe that the mass audience CAN make decisions for themselves and not always consider the media reviews.