KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

treasuretrove_vip I can't agree with those who called this a great movie. One wonders if they worked for the studio or for Hasbro. Some of the feedback was completely over the top – much like the GI Joe franchise itself. And that's the shame of it, because the GI Joe series had the potential to be really great. But unfortunately Ron Friedman and the studio never fully understood why the show worked, which was largely in spite of their handling of it.We liked GI Joe because the characters were so interesting. Everyone eagerly looked for their favorites to appear in individual episodes, wanting to know more about them and wanting to see them succeed, even if they happened to be members of COBRA. Would it have been too much to ask for just ONE of Cobra Commander's plots to be successful? But unfortunately the writers and producers felt it necessary to dumb-down practically every aspect of the show, deeming the audience either too squeamish or too stupid to accept any form of realism.Despite the fact that the show's basic premise was based on domestic warfare, GI Joe's creators felt it necessary to safeguard their viewing audience from any hint of reality. Cartoon violence that would have been necessary for the show to have any substance was replaced by outright buffoonery on both sides. Most fans kept watching in spite of the writing – willing to overlook the most ridiculous story lines and plot holes because we loved the characters. So naturally, the studio execs did what all executives do when they don't understand their fan base – they took away the show's best redeeming quality. Starting in season 2 they began robbing us of those original characters, replacing them abruptly with new ones that were predictable and uninteresting – all in the name of selling more toys. GI Joe The Movie represents the sad pinnacle of this strategy, with a whole new group of GI Bozos created to take over the franchise, including the absolute worst two ever created – Big Lob and Chuckles, and the completely unnecessary Lt. Falcon. I suspect this new batch was brewed up just in case we had grown attached to any of the Season 2 characters, who no doubt would have been jettisoned in Season 3. We saw so little of some of the original Joes in the movie that I had to check the credits just to make sure they had made a cursory appearance. Needless to say, the franchise collapsed under the weight of such inept leadership and fan ignorance, and a third season was never produced.The movie did have a few high points. Chris Latta gave his usual strong performance as Cobra Commander, Michael Bell had a chance to expand Duke's character, and Burgess Meredith with his gravelly voice brought a good menacing quality to Golobulus. One of the darkest (and best) lines of the entire series is when he said to Falcon "I will stain my hands with your blood." But memorable lines like that were few and far between in the series. Kudos to Friedman for (finally) trying to interject some realism with the death of Duke, but even that was thwarted in the end. We often make fun of his coma scene, comparing it to Futurama's lengthy list of coma patients in the embedded soap opera 'All My Circuits'.Like every agent of COBRA, GI Joe The Movie misses the mark. It's sad because the series had tremendous potential. But the writers consistently went wrong in so many ways, turning action/adventure into unintentional comedy. In their insistence of trying to lower the collective IQ of their viewers, they guaranteed that certain things would always happen during any episode of GI Joe. For starters, COBRA can't shoot straight. You'd think at least one member would have been sent down to the firing range for some target practice. Second, GI Joe has the worst security on the planet. Zartan, Zarana, the Baroness and Firefly could come and go at will and should have just been issued EZ passes for the front gate. Third, the animals were smarter than their human counterparts and in the case of Polly, were more articulate (at least as far as Bazooka was concerned – don't they have IQ tests to get in to GI Joe?)Fourth, there was more depth in the characters' 2-D drawings than there ever was in their development. Despite being the leader of the most lethal terrorist organization on the planet, Cobra Commander has the military prowess of Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes. Duke on the other hand is one of those fortunate people who goes through life never having to second guess himself because he's so perfect. Other characters like Shipwreck, Bazooka and the Dreadnok's are forever doomed to play the fool for comic relief.Fifth were all the things that make you go 'huh?' For example, why do COBRA soldiers never remove their helmets, even in the gym? (how do they shower?) Why does Quick-Kick wear no shirt or shoes in the snow, and Barbecue his suffocating fire-suit in the desert? How DOES Deep Six go to the bathroom in that get-up? And how many times has Lady Jaye gotten knocked unconscious – shouldn't she have been discharged by now for post-traumatic concussion syndrome? I guess since GI Joes never lose a fair fight, the only other option is to either dog-pile them with a dozen enemy soldiers, or bash them over the head with blunt-force trauma.Sixth is that one GI Joe is all it takes to bring down an entire COBRA armada (we call them "One Shot Joe"). A single handgun, a magic javelin, or a piece of fruit was enough for any Joe to win the day. Which raises the final point: GI Joe can never lose – COBRA can never win. End of story, and the premature end of the franchise.

Thanosied790870 I only heard about this movie last week, and watched it on youtube a few hours ago. I can only imagine how exciting it must have been for a kid from the 1980's to watch this. The plot is very Gi Joe-ish: Cobra plans to steal a device that can help them gain control of the world, Blah blah blah. Only this time, They're getting help from an ancient race of snake-people! Also, for the first time, Cobra Commander's origin is revealed! It's an awesome movie, But with a big problem (I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about) However, like I said before, There's always action in some form or another in almost every scene, so that more than makes up for you-know-what in my book. That, and one of the coolest movie openings ever. It even has some humor in it! The animation, although about 20 years old, is impressive. Go rent a copy today!

DarthBill After an exciting opening featuring a great, powerful rendition of the GI Joe theme and a fierce battle between the Joes and Cobra before the Statue of Liberty, we get treated to a ludicrous story about a city full of giant bugs called Cobra-La, which spawned Cobra Commander and had a hand in the creation of Serpentor, reaching out to Cobra to get them to capture the latest in sci-fi technology, the Broadcast Energy Transmitter or BET, so that they can use it to cook up some giant spores floating over the Earth to turn us humans into ugly monsters while the Cobra-La folk hang out safely in their ice dome. Only GI Joe, the real American Hero, stands in their way, and with many Joes incapacitated in some way or another, it's up to the Rawhides - including Duke's smart ass half brother Lt. Falcon, female Asian martial artist Jinx, silent Chuckles, cynical Tunnel Rat, good natured Law and his dog and the in movie only sports man Big Lob - along with Sgt. Slaughter's Renegades - Mercer, Red Dog and Taurus - to step in and lend a helping hand.I use to watch this over and over as a kid because it was the easiest access I had to GI Joe when I couldn't catch the reruns, but even as a kid I thought it sucked, mostly because the Cobra-La thing just didn't gel in with the rest of what I knew about GI Joe. Apparently having Cobra Commander be a scion of Cobra-La stemmed from an idea one of the show's writers had that CC was really just a front man for a much larger, more sinister organization. Even by 1980s kid show standards this whole movie's plot was just a little too far fetched.Still, I think this was a little bit better than the Transformers movie, but like Transformers the GI Joe movie suffers from trying to push out the characters we already loved in favor of new characters we never got to know very well (like the Transformers movie, this was supposed to bridge the gap to a 3rd season, but GI Joe's 3rd year never happened), which takes a lot of fun out of the movie. There's also the thing about Duke - they say he went into a coma, but after taking a friggin snake javelin right in the heart, the man was clearly dead. Apparently they had to change the death, originally set because Duke was being phased out of the toy line and the writers were tired of fighting with the toy owner Hasbro to keep him in the show, because of the backlash to Optimus Prime's death in the Transformers flick. Personally I think GI Joe could have gotten away with killing Duke (not that I wanted him to die); Optimus Prime need not have died. Too bad, because the brush with death, right when Duke rasps "Yo... Joe..." for the last time (and let's face it, no one yelled "Yo Joe!" better than Michael Bell, with Duke easily being the best role of his voice over career) was actually proving to be very touching, but the coma line ruins it. The writers themselves admitted it sucked and have pointed out that if you watch it without sound and go just by the reactions of Scarlett, Falcon and General Hawk, and the way our favorite rugged blonde man's head rolls to the side and his grip loosens, then it's quite evident that Duke dies.The thing about Falcon being Duke's half-brother was also a bit tacky, though Don "Miami Vice" Johnson read the part fairly well, especially since they really look nothing alike; Falcon was originally supposed to be General Hawk's son, and they really should have stuck to that. But with the beret he could have passed as a relative of Flint's.Flint, so prominent in the cartoon, has very little to do here, sadly, as do many other beloved GI Joe characters.On the plus side, the animation is great, the action sequences are above par and so is the music. The opening is probably the best thing about the movie (and probably would have made a better plot for the movie).

Heather ***Spoilers*** I was scrolling down the user comments and saw heading like "Great", "Awesome", etc. I think maybe some are watching this with rose tinted eyeballs.Besides the rampant ethnic stereotyping and offensive accents (like the Mexican guy who may as well just say "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" and be done with it, the Black guy who, I kid you not, raps every time he talks, and the Russian woman who sounds like the Count from Sesame Street, "One, two, three, three terrible voice actors! Mwahaha"), there were a whole bunch of plot, animation, and acting problems to deal with.The movie contained so many inconsistencies that it made me wonder if perhaps the animators were not reading the script. The scene with the explosives in the enemy base alone was enough to convince me that these guys had no idea what they were doing. Look closely at the timer on the bomb. When it reaches 0 the joes are INSIDE the base. Then it starts to go off in an impressive display of jerky animation and suddenly the Joes are OUTSIDE the base with out having to take the few minutes to actually run there. Oh, sorry...I forgot about off screen teleportation...The second major problem I had was the "touching" scene where Duke is stabbed. Watch closely. The wound is on the left. They pan away, the pan back, still on the left. They pan away again, pan back and oops. Now its on the right. Was anyone else reminded of Igor from "Young Frankenstein"? I would also like to point out that this entire scene is negated by the fact that Duke is NOT dead (as was implied by his DYING in that scene). "It's OK everyone. Duke is gonna be OK!" *General revelry*...This scene is also full of poor dialouge. And what's the deal with all the "yo Joe!"'s? I love it when the General turns away from Duke's supposed dead body and says, with a single tear running down his cheek, "yo, joe." Touching. Oh I was crying...I was laughing so hard my eyes were streaming.While watching this movie I honestly had to wonder who was writing this garbage. " GOLOBULOUS:'Kill him.' SERPENTOR:'No put him in with the others as an example of what will happen if they disobey us.' PYTHONA: 'I like that idea. It's poetic in it's simplicity' " WHAT?!? What does she even mean?!? How is it poetic? How is it anything other than a tired routine? Arrggg. And I would again like to bring up YO JOE! The writers tend to chuck that gem in whenever they can think of nothing else. In the most inappropriate times (like when it makes no sense) a random Joe will just yell YO JOE! This is generally not a good tactic when one is attempting to sneak up on the enemy.My final complaint is the animation. Mostly the animation of the bad guys. Besides everything in Cobrala looking increadibly phallic, it also looks like the Joes are being attacked by a herd of those things you put on the table at Thanksgiving. Ahhhh look out Sarge! The cornucopia's are attacking!!! Also Nemisis (I think that's his name). You'll know him when you see hime. Hes the one who looks like a cross between Arch Angel and Magneto (although wearing an interesting red holdall over his purple body/body armor). Since Marvel made this movie I find this all rather suspicious...Basically this movie was like watching a feature length episode of the Super Friends, but without the goofy charm and rampant alliteration. I probably enjoyed it when I was a kid, but then I also enjoyed eating bugs...PS Theres a Joe named SnowJob. Um anyone else find that...interesting PPS I din't even get into the song...and I'm not gonna