Mark Reviews Movies: SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 22, 2021

Snake Eyes is apparently one of the most popular characters in the G.I. Joe franchise. It began as toys and comic books in the 1980s, before moving on to other media and having enough longevity that we're talking about the most popular characters in 2021.

This isn't the first movie to have the G.I. Joe branding, either. Long after a 1985 animated movies, there were G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra in 2009 and G.I. Joe: Retaliation in 2013. Neither of the more recent entries was particularly better or worse than mediocre, although they were so forgettable that who can really say on which end of mediocre either of them actually landed. While Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins seems to be a complete reboot of the series, it doesn't fare much better than those previous attempts to start and continue a series.

The hook, obviously, is that this movie revolves around the character of Snake Eyes, who usually wears all black and has his entire head covered by a helmet. One can understand the appeal, if only because there's so much mystery inherent to the character, and one doesn't even need to know anything beyond the guy's uniform to realize that fact.

In theory, the character, played by Henry Golding, gets an upgrade here, since we learn of his past and a story that explains his primary driving characteristic, his training as a ninja of sorts, and how he got the uniform and sword that made him the far-and-away favorite of a bunch of kids over the past few decades. Although Golding's alternately charming and simmering presence gives the character a hint of complexity, all of this is pretty generic and routine.

One imagines that doesn't need to be explained to the movie's trio of screenwriters (Evan Spiliotopoulos, Joe Shrepnel, and Anna Waterhouse) or director Robert Schwentke. They play the material about as safely and franchise-friendly as possible, and by the end, Snake Eyes is more or less along for the ride as the filmmakers set the pieces for sequels and spin-offs and team-ups.

That, apparently, is what the big blockbusters are now. Even when they haven't earned a sense of what makes a world and a set of characters and an overarching plot unique or involving, they still have to assume that the sequels, the spin-offs, and the team-ups are going to happen. If they don't, a reboot several years later might fix that, and hence, the cycle continues.

As for this particular re-starting of a familiar cycle, a young Snake Eyes witnesses the murder of his father (The killer makes the father roll dice to determine his fate, and they come up double ones, naturally). Twenty years later, a gangster named Kenta (Takehiro Hira) offers Snake Eyes a deal. If he works for Kenta, the yakuza leader will find dad's murderer.

Instead, Snake Eyes rescues Tommy (Andrew Koji), the heir apparent to a clan of ninjas, from Kenta's wrath. The two travel to Japan, where Snake Eyes is put a series of challenges to prove his worthiness, while Tommy's chief of security Akiko (Haruka Abe) suspects the stranger might have ulterior motives. She turns out to be correct, because Snake Eyes is still keeping his bargain with Kenta, who wants a magical jewel securely hidden within the clan's castle (The relatively grounded story does have a few silly bits—too many to take it seriously and too few to say the filmmakers are winking at them).

There's not much that can be said of this plot, which exists for those challenges, some twists, multiple fights, and the eventual introduction of battling organizations: the Joes, represented by Scarlett (Samara Weaving), and Cobra, represented by the villainous Baroness (Úrsula Corberó). Discussion of the action sequences basically begins and ends with Schwentke's unfortunate decision to employ so many cuts and so much handheld camera work that the choreography is unintelligible (An impressively conceived fight, on motorcycles and atop a truck, during the climax has the same issues, plus oppressively dim lighting). As for the bigger world of the Joes and Cobra, it almost feels like a different movie begins whenever their representatives appear.

Golding does his sardonic and bristling best, though, as the material about Snake Eyes fighting with himself about whether to be an agent of revenge or something else at least gives this character some weight (A knowing chuckle, as the character realizes what he really wants, is an admirably subtle beat, and it's a shame that moment takes places while our then-anti-hero is confronting a trio of very big, very digital snakes). If the lengthy epilogue of Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is any indication (setting up a bunch of story elements that might pay off in a future entry—or many of them), we haven't seen the last of Snake Eyes. If we take that section at its word, we've likely seen the last of any potential for real intrigue from him, though.

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