G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Pros:
- Red Lasers / Blue Lasers
- Underground Desert Bases / Underwater Arctic Bases / Hoth-like Snow Bases
- Nano-mites
- Snake Eyes / Storm Shadow
- Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow
- Snake Eyes & Storm Shadow
- Sienna Miller's body
- BSG-esq high scale submarine battles
- Paris street chase is one of the most entertaining action sequences I've seen in a while. The jump suits I was skeptical of from the trailer are actually pretty damn sweet.
- Scarlett's heat seeking crossbow
- Cobra Foot Soldiers
- "Lost" cast-member count: 2 — Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje aka Mr. Eko (Heavy Duty) and Saïd Taghmaoui aka Caesar (Breaker).
- The movies second half is nearly entirely action packed, pure cartoon / comicy Joe fun. The revealing of Cobra Commander and Destro is prue diabolic comic pulpy goodness. In fact all the main Cobra villains are completely awesome (Zartan!) The action is tight and fun, Storm Shadow and Snake Eye's final battle is very reminiscent of "Phantom Menace's" final Darth Maul light saber duel. Maybe that's because the incredible Ray Park is behind both Maul and Snakes Eyes.
- Every single scene with Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow

Cons:
- Perpetually constipated Dennis Quiad. Will someone seriously feed this man some dairy products? Constipation Level: Somewhere between "Vantage Point" and "The Day After Tomorrow."
- Marlon Wayans
- Every line that comes out of Scarlett's mouth
- The first half of the movie. Up until the Paris chase the movie is too caught up in establishing its story and characters (none of which, with a movie like this, do we really give a flying fuck about.)
- Sienna Miller's acting
- The Duke / Baroness love story. Once again with a movie like this, completely unnecessary. Give me more action. The only people it's going to please is the girls whose boyfriends dragged them to the movie. And the flimsy half-assery of the "love story" probably won't even be enough to keep them satisfied.
- Terrible one-liners that are beyond awesomely-bad and just straight bad. All of the Joe's in-fact are incredibly cheesy and can be a bit annoying. Don't really make me want to root for um much.
- Why must Cobra Commander bypass a Norton Virus Scan before uploading the Nano-mite info?
- Cookie cutter nuke high-jacking evil doer plot line.
- At times fairly shoddy special-fx.

All that said, the momentum of the second half of the movie, which leads it towards an obvious sequel, is very promising. If the filmmakers realize that they are making an action movie first and foremost, they can succeed in pleasing their audience next time around and silence the folks that were on the fence with this one. They would probably strike gold if they made a film entirely based around the life of "brothers" Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, their parts in the film are truly the most action packed and strongest acted. Without them, the movie would get a much lower score from me.

Pure summer popcorn action: B-

And just for good measure, my favorite viral video from 9th Grade: