Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins: Another squeeze of the toy-based franchise, with some character development and samurai swordplay

By Jim Slotek

Rating: B-minus

For all the kvetching some do about the theatres being taken over by comic book superheroes, it’s worth considering how much theatrical real estate is taken up by toys – The Transformers franchise, The Lego Movie, G.I. Joe., etc.

(Political history moment: a lot of these, especially the ones that started out as kids cartoons, might never have happened but for the Reagan administration deregulating children’s programming, allowing shows to be outright ads for toys).

Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) seeks advice from Blind Master (Peter Mensah) in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

So here we are, in pandemic times, looking for the cinemas to be saved by a tent-pole film based on a Hasbro product.

The prequel/reboot Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is an attempt to squeeze more juice out of a franchise that has already birthed two tales of the “Joes” versus the organization of global evil Cobra (I keep wanting to write Hydra, so derivative is one from the other).

As it happens, I found more to like in Snake Eyes than I did in the previous two films, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. It’s no coincidence that the only Transformers film I didn’t find excruciating was Bumblebee, which took a left turn from the ongoing events of the franchise and told a (comparatively) simple story of a girl and her robot (and somehow managed to be presented in much less than three hours).

Though Cobra does eventually become a “thing” in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, for much of the movie the focus is on a few characters without much noisy nonsense (that comes later).

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

A young boy is living with his dad in the woods, in an apparent “safe house” that isn’t so safe. An ambush by bad guys leaves dad dead (after a phony offer to keep him alive with the right roll of dice) and the son on the run. 

Years later, we meet him as a drifter, played by Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) and nicknamed Snake Eyes, after his dad’s fatal dice throw. Somehow, he’s become trained in martial arts, and supports himself on prize money from underground fight clubs.

But, hey, people like him. A Yakuza boss hires him to hide guns in fish headed for Japan. When a spy is found in their midst, and Snake Eyes is ordered to kill him, he refuses, and instead releases the captive and joins him in fighting the rest of the Yakuza (there are a lot of 20-on-1 fights in this movie).

The captive turns out to be Tommy Arashikage (Andrew Koji), the heir apparent to leadership of a clan of protectors of Japan. Snake Eyes’ act of mercy gains him a private jet flight to Tokyo and entry into the medieval-style fortress of the Arashikage clan (most of whom are suspicious of this stranger who has no past, no real name, and, though Asian, isn’t Japanese).

It should be noted that the Scottish actor Ray Park previously played Snake Eyes. He would have raised even more eyebrows.

Snake Eyes is trained by the best, including a blind African-American warrior named Blind Master (Peter Mensah) and Hard Master (Iko Uwais). He is also cheered on by Tommy’s suspicious but smitten sister Akiko (Haruka Abe).

The entire time however, Snake Eyes is nursing a burning need for revenge against whoever killed his father. And secretly, he is playing both the Yakuza and the Arashikage, whichever can best serve his revenge-quest.

This is the reason I like the Origins approach, as X-Men Origins proved at another studio. There’s a little more room for characters to breathe.

This is not to last, however. The whole thing must ignite into a final act of fights, car chases and general destruction (and Snake Eyes’ discovery of honour). The battle scenes are often darkly lit and confusing (though it is a change of pace to see so much swordplay as opposed to gunplay), and the attempt to fuse the Joes and Cobra into the plot in the last act is not exactly smooth.

 Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins. Directed by Robert Schwentke. Starring Henry Golding, Andrew Koji and Haruka Abe. Opens in theatres Friday, July 23.