Is G.I. Joe even a thing anymore? I mean, it’s clearly something to certain people. I doubt a studio would dump $90 million into a property that nobody gives a damn about. But — serious question — is it a thing with the kids these days? I certainly grew up with the toys and the Saturday morning cartoon, but I’m forty years old. The last time I cared about G.I. Joe was probably in the late 80s. After that I moved on to grown-up, big boy things1 and never looked back. So do modern day kiddos still act out their bloodless militaristic fantasies with four inch-tall dolls with silly names?
After watching Snake Eyes2 I still have no idea. Robert Schwentke’s film is such an odd mixture of elements that I’m not sure if this is a movie aimed at getting kids to buy more toys, or a movie aimed at indulging in the nostalgia of old fucks like me and getting them to buy more expensive toys.
We start off with the titular Snake Eyes (Henry Golding), a drifter badass with a dark history who makes his money winning underground cage fights. Underground cage fights are, as we all know, shorthand for someone being a drifter badass with a dark history. Snake Eyes is nothing if not economical. Within minutes of this being established he is approached by Kenta (Takehiro Kira), a higher up in the Yakuza.
Snake Eyes will work for them in exchange for the identity of the man who killed his father. Within (screen) minutes of this he’s ordered by Kenta to kill a man.
Being a drifter badass with a heart of gold, Snake Eyes saves the man, betraying the Yakuza.
Said man turns out to be Tommy (Andrew Koji), heir to be leader of the revered and intensely honorable Arashikage ninja clan. Out of gratitude and respect for Snake, Tommy brings him to Japan, offering him the chance to join the Arashikage and fight for the forces of good.
That sounds like a lot of synopsis, but it feels like it takes ten minutes of screen time. Wham, bam, there’s your premise.
What follows is an unexpectedly straight-faced and action-light affair, centered around Snake training and proving himself worthy of becoming a member of the Arashikage.
There are lessons learned. There are backs stabbed, both literal and figurative. Iko Uwais stands around being sadly wasted. Predictable twists aside, it’s oddly engaging for — probably in the words of some studio exec somewhere — a “grounded” take on a Hasbro toy.
Well, grounded at least in comparison to the glorious candy-colored campiness of Stephen Sommers’ G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. We’re not talking a cinéma vérité ninja movie here. The cast is solid, the cinematography is lovely at times, and Snake Eyes’ own conflicting motivations and emotions are simple but well defined.
Then, a fair way into the film, it goes bonkers and introduces a bunch of Saturday morning cartoon elements in an abrupt series of exposition dumps. The Joes. Cobra. Mystical artifacts. Characters with silly code names. I’m more than fine with all of that stuff (being a big fan of the Sommers film) but it’s a jarring transition, and it makes me wonder what this movie’s aims were.
Motion pictures are obviously not made chronologically, so this makes no literal sense, but it feels like the movie is trying to cater to old fans who are insecure about liking the “kids’ stuff” they liked thirty years ago. It’s stylized genre fare with a patina of seriousness. Then it suddenly realizes, “Oh, shit. We’re trying to relaunch a media franchise that makes money from kids and we need things to be toyetic, so let’s utterly shift gears late in the running time. At this point there’s no room for the Hover Tank, but let’s bring in the Sacred Thingy and the Hot Fighting Person.”
There’s a lot to like about Snake Eyes. Again, the cast is a lot of fun. It looks pretty. It’s for the most part refreshingly devoid of irony. The fight choreography seems good, even if often obscured by too much camera shake and fast editing. In an American action film? Shocker. But it feels like the scripts for two very different — and potentially decent — movies crashed into each other. Weaving those films together properly could have given us something interesting. Instead, the end result is watchable, but also strange and lopsided. Yet another movie that’s had months and months of COVID-caused delays but is still half-baked.
Also, one of the defining characteristics of Snake Eyes in other media is that he can’t talk, right? In this he’s a motormouth and I’m sure that’s ruined someone’s childhood.
