Snake Eyes (2021)
0.5/4
Even before the pandemic, Paramount Pictures’ G.I. Joe film franchise had been struggling to find an audience. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation didn’t do amazingly well financially and the majority of critical reception was poor for both. Now, in a desperate attempt to appeal to a global audience, Paramount has released Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, an origin story focused entirely on mysterious ninja Snake Eyes, who has been a fan-favourite character even before Paramount decided to turn the popular toy line into a movie franchise.
Unfortunately, Snake Eyes is just another mindless action romp and does very little to justify the franchise’s continued existence.
I will say that both Henry Golding and Andrew Koji are well-cast as the fan-favourite characters Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Both of them do a great job handling whatever the film throws at them while providing both characters with emotional depth.
However, this is the only good thing that I can say about this movie. Everything else is a sloppy mess to me, and this is mainly because of a lack of a likeable title hero. Now, I didn’t grow up in the ’80s, when the toys and the animated TV show were popular, but I do know that Snake Eyes is supposed to be a hero and Storm Shadow is supposed to be the villain. In this film, that’s all bent backwards.
In fact, Snake Eyes is more like the villain of the film in a lot of ways. I mean, he spends the entire movie backstabbing his friends who helped him, he steals dangerous objects to give to people he knows are terrorists just to meet his own interests, and then he robs his friend of his birthright by getting him thrown out of his own family. Hero? Yeah, I think not.
Another thing that I really hated about this film is the use of shaky cam. For those of you who are unaware of this, “shaky cam” is a term filmmakers use when one of them apparently decides that the best way to film a action scene is to get their cinematographer to pick up their camera during filming and start shaking it, because, in their mind, that’s the way to shoot an action scene. This is just a very annoying filmmaking trend that really needs to die off. When the filmmakers shake the camera like they do in this movie, it makes it nearly impossible to see what’s going on; I actually find it disrespectful to the actors and it also makes for a very nauseating time at the theatre for the viewer.
In the end, Snake Eyes is a step down for the franchise, which is saying a lot, and it serves as a clear indicator that Paramount needs to take a hint and put this incoherent series to rest.