Snake Eyes

Andrew. Koji steals the attention with his emotional expression, too bad his lines were not so good. I think he should be snake eyes.

So this is now essentially the third attempt to bring GI Joe to the big screen. Lorenzo Di Bonaventura returns at the helm and proves once again - he does not really care... Honestly - how this film actually came to be is beyond me - a group of professional people working in the industry collectively decided that firstly : this film should be made - then that Evan Spiliotopoulos (who has hardly written a single great film to date) should write the damn thing - then add a director, Schwentke (who has a track record of terrible blockbuster films) - and let's top it off with TV travel host/Rom-com break out - Henry Golding to play Snake eyes himself. Shocking....

SO - It definitely is not the Snake eyes that people know and love. He does bad things in this film and unfortunately, Henry isn't a skilled enough actor to make you like him. I disagree that it was purely in the writing - a great actor can make you care for the most despicable characters but Golding proves here he should stick to Rom-coms...and his own accent. His physical skills and acting feel forced and awkward and in my opinion needs a lot of work if I would ever buy him as a legitimate action star. He does have some charisma and good looks though.

It seems like the majority of the articles and social media agree that the film's saving grace is Andrew Koji's Storm Shadow. He adds nuance and depth to Tommy (even though he is dealt the rough hand with having to deliver the majority of the exposition) He commands the screen whenever he is on and delivers us the most layered Storm Shadow in almost any medium to date - just too bad he is let down by an awful script. Koji steals the show with his performance and to top it off you can tell he knows how to move - his action moments were by far the most fun to watch - although he was let down by a terrible filming style there too. I definitely want to see more of Koji. Jin Sakai for Ghost of Tsushima!

The rest of the cast are great in their limited roles - Samara, Ursula, Iko and Peter Mensah - all do great. They are well cast but under utilised. Hollywood SERIOUSLY needs to stop thinking they know best with martial arts action sequences - Iko and Kenji Tanigaki's team is absolutely wasted here.

There was a lot of potential with a GI Joe reboot. There was some potential for a good Snake eyes film - but these people clearly are not the right people to do it. Paramount needs to learn. You would have thought Lorenzo etc would have learnt something since the last films 10 years ago - but clearly not. They have not only destroyed many people's favourite character - they have simple made a bad film and wasted a lot of money and talent....

5.5/10.

First of all, this has *nothing* to do with G. I. Joe, as it is a medieval story about two Japanese clans and the protagonist is caught somewhat in between. Yes, it happens today, but 90% of all fights are using swords and the prize of the war is a magical stone. It's like someone took an existing Japanese samurai and ninjas script, added an extraneous character and made him the protagonist, then plastered on a Joe/Cobra connection and brought it into the present. And the way they added this stuff is like fixing a broken mirror with industrial sticky tape on the visible side.

And what a cast this had: Andrew Koji from Warrior (I still crave for a new season), Iko Uwais from Raid, Peter Mensah from Spartacus, Takehiro Hira (who in my mind did the best job in the film, even if he was the villain and had a really dumb role), Samara Weaving from Guns Akimbo. Not to mention Eri Ishida, who did more in a few scenes than "Snake Eyes" in the entire film. They did nothing with all of this. The fights were fractured and made little sense, focused on form and ignoring substance. Two people fighting 50 and succeeding because they all used swords and the heroes had unlimited stamina, the usual running (slowly and awkwardly) from bullets scene, people running in the sword range to fire a gun, ugh! It was incredibly ugly. Even the motorcycle and car scenes were ridiculously bad. A team of 5 snipers could have finished *everybody* without loses.

Worst of all, it's called G. I. Joe Origins and it features a character who has never heard of the Joes in a time when both Cobra and Joes have been established for a long time. There is no origin story at all! There is no story, really!

Bottom line: this film is something that whole teams of people should be fired because of. A 100 million dollar film that manages to waste every resource it bought. Avoid it like it's the plague.

Ah now we have your average Joe.

I haven't watched any G. I. Joe movies, so I have no idea about Snake Eyes coming in. Because of this, I judge this movie only as an independent action, hoping it to be a great summer blockbuster. And I was disappointed.

Before the movie began, Henry Golding shared that there's gonna be a lot of action. That's true, as there were multiple sword fights. However, each fight was short and unsatisfying. The camera angles were bad, and I couldn't see the choreography clearly. Iko Uwais was in this movie, and he's a fantastic martial artist actor. However, he got little screen time. It's almost like they don't have the budget for long fight choreography.

The story was boring and not special. Snake Eyes was a bland and bad protagonist. I don't care much about his journey, and the ending for his character felt unjustified. It's not that Henry Golding's acting was bad, but the direction for his character made him like a side character.

The acting was okay across. Only Andrew Koji stood out as the Storm Shadow. He was pretty badass with the swords, especially his serious face. I think he stole the spotlight from Golding's Snake Eyes.

Overall, a mediocre story with unsatisfying action scenes. 5/10.

Saw the movie last night and was not impressed with anything I saw. The makers of this film have either no idea of the origins of Snake-Eyes or they intentionally destroyed the character. Aside from the fact that Snake-Eyes was always a Gaijin (white guy) he was also honorable in all that he did. This version has him as a two-faced, lying, thief. The feeble redemption arc in the final act was too little - too late, and unbelievable. The casting choices also left me a bit confused. Golding was never a good choice for Snake-Eyes and as much as I love Samara Weaving, she was a horrible Scarlet. The actress who ineptly portrayed the Baroness was too young for the character and was not even close to being believable. Iko Uwais was great as usual but would have been a much better Storm Shadow or even Snake-Eyes! Andrew Koji did do a good job as Storm Shadow and his was the best performance in the whole film by far.

The story was subpar, even for a genre piece, and the script could have been written by a middle-schooler. The action was decently choreographed and wasn't too over the top. It seemed like it couldn't decide whether to be gritty or cartoonish in its approach to the action, which was a letdown. There are several continuity issues as well; a brawler raised on the street with no formal training can automatically hold his own against highly trained ninjas (can you say Rey Palpatine?) or a girl who had been a devoted part of the clan for over a decade breaking sacred rules to save someone she just met?

All in all, this movie sucked!