gi joe: the rise of cobra

did you know:
- in the arctic, ice is so heavy that it sinks and can crush your underwater fortress?
- the only way to shoot down a missle is to chase it with a super-fast experimental jet that has been inexplicably parked nearby with the keys in the ignition?
- a person whose head is encased in red-hot iron would not die within seconds?
- marlon wayans is not the most annoying person in the world?

these lies and many other crimes against humanity were committed in the recently released film, "gi joe: the rise of cobra." by the way, those were all spoilers, not that it would be possible for me to ruin this movie any more than it already was.

anyway, gi joe is a horror film about two guys who are held hostage in a darkened movie theater with about 50 other people. they are forced to watch as horrible, horrible things are shown on a large screen at the front of the room. the tension mounts as their experience goes from bad to worse and their survival becomes more and more doubtful. the close of the film is especially chilling. we see the two protagonists leaving the theatre, discussing how horrible their experience was and how they will take care to steer clear of such travesties in the future. you are thinking that such a horrible movie as they have endured has been stopped in its tracks until, in a gruesome twist, we see another pair of friends walking out...talking about how much they enjoyed the action-packed film. ("...that was awesome, when the eiffel tower fell over." "yeah, and then that flying leap into the helicopter...") terrifying. i get chills just thinking about it.

this film packs quite a punch as yet another entry in the "torture porn" horror film genre, but is tremendously weakened by the banal qualities of the film-within-the-film, which is, for better or worse, shown almost completely, much in the same way that in "the ring," the complete contents of the videotape are shown in the course of telling the story. in "gi joe," the film-within-the-film is not a snippet or hodge-podge like in "the ring." rather, it is so complete that it can nearly stand as a film on its own, though it is so bad that it could not realistically be released in a real theater. if you are willing to suspend disbelief on that point, however, you have a terrifying torture experience.

in conclusion, gi joe is a relatively standard entry in the psychological-torture-porn horror genre. this would have been a stronger film if they had spent less time on graphic torture scenes and more time on background; for instance, what compelled the main characters to stay for the entire movie? i never felt like i understood their motivations, so i spent a lot of the movie wanting to yell "get out of the theater" at the characters on screen.