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Snake Eyes - A Review

When I was a kid, my G.I Joe figures were twelve inches tall, and they came with an assortment of vehicles, many of which I had. I was a kid back in the 1970s, and G.I. Joe then was mainly an adventurer, he was an Indiana Jones-type of explorer several years before Raiders of the Lost Ark had even been released. When the G.I Joe resurgence happened in the 1980s, I was too old to be playing with G.I. Joes, having given my old figures away to my younger cousins. Besides, I really didn’t care for the whole 80s craze of having the cartoons be nothing more than half hour commercials for the toys.

When I heard they were making Snake Eyes, I originally thought it was going to be a remake of the Brian DePalma film starring Nicolas Cage as a cop trying to uncover a conspiracy during a hurricane in Atlantic City. In other words, I really had no knowledge of the “new” G.I. Joes--one of which is a dude dressed in all black who goes by the handle of Snake Eyes. But when I went in with this film, I kept an open mind and was willing to learn about whatever mythology that was behind this elite group of warriors in a special antiterrorism unit.

But, having seen the new Snake Eyes, I still don’t really know that much about these new Joes, because the movie focuses exclusively on Snake Eyes, played by Henry Golding as an extremely chatty fellow (one thing I do know about Snake Eyes is that, in the cartoon, he never speaks) who heads into gun fights armed with just samurai swords and knives--and he somehow always wins. And when he’s not fighting bad guys in lackluster action scenes, Snake Eyes is participating in these really dull training sessions where he must learn A VERY IMPORTANT LESSON ABOUT HIMSELF.

The problem is that I found Snake Eyes, both the film and the character, to be really boring. Even when Samara Weaving--the niece of veteran actor Hugo Weaving--showed up as G.I Jane (or whatever the hell she’s supposed to be called), I was happy to see her, and was sure that the damned movie would finally pick up some steam. But Weaving (who was so good in Ready Or Not) is strangely subdued, here. Just like most of the cast, she seems to be not interested in overexerting her acting skills. Maybe because she and the rest of the cast realized that the movie they were in was a piece of shit and really wasn’t worth their time or talents?

Oh, well. If nothing else, this Snakes Eyes made me want to re-watch the other, far better, Snake Eyes with Nic Cage. And if that’s all this movie manages to do--its similar title inadvertently directing people to a far superior flick--then at least that’s a good thing. Yo, Joe! --SF

Snake Eyes can be seen here on Amazon.
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