G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' prompts a few questions as a reviewer, especially as I would imagine that most people are going to have made up their minds pretty much on seeing the title for the first time. Spawned from the Hasbro action figure toy of the same name (notice a trend?) the 'Joes' are an elite military unit, soon pulled into a mission to save the world. Highly original stuff... So, what questions are worth asking?

How does it look? To be honest, pretty good. The special effects are particularly effective, though their presence becomes so frequent that they begin to lose importance pretty early on. That said, one scene that deserves specific mention is a sequence in Paris sequence showing the incredibly realistic collapse of the Eiffel Tower. Not ground-breaking, but certainly of a high standard.

Iron Man meets the 400m hurdles. Look out London 2012, drug testing won't catch this one out...

What about the storyline? Worryingly, 'G.I. Joe' managed to be both predictable and still highly convoluted, which in fairness is quite a trick to pull off. There is really too much going on at once, most of it being highly irrelevant, and seemingly more an excuse to cram in as many effects as possible.

The big one now... is it good enough to warrant a sequel? Evidently yes, although Hasbro and Paramount seem desperate not to repeat the same rather muted critical reception that this film received. The sequel (due out later in 2012), is rolling out action movie big-guns like Bruce Willis and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in an effort to guide 'Retaliation' to box office success. To be honest though, provided the franchise can keep delivering on the Transformers formula, I see no reason for them to stop. One thing for the production team to bare in mind for the future though; as much as Channing Tatum provides a welcome diversion, the heavy prosthetics and enormous face mask means that we don't see nearly enough of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's pretty face. Sort it out.