Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins - Pretty Enjoyable in term of Action but Lacking Engaging Story to Make it Truly Interesting

I was really excited and looking forward to watching this movie ever since it was promoted to be released on Catchplay+ in September. Despite being late for 1 day, it was still better as it was accessible from home earlier than in Indonesian theaters. Anyway, I am going to go ahead on the film now.

Brief Story Line

A man with great martial arts skill who went by the name Snake Eyes (Henry Golding - Last Christmas, The Gentlemen etc) was recruited by Yakuza boss, Kenta (Takehiro Hira - Lost Girls & Love Hotels etc). Due to some reasons, he left them and befriended with Tomisaburo Arashikage (Andrew Koji - Warrior TV series etc), the future leader of secret ninja clan Arashikage.

Snake Eyes was given the opportunity to become one of their members, although with the strong objection from their chief security Akiko (Haruka Abe) who suspected his motive. In order to be part of Arashikage clan, Snake had to pass tests held by Hard Master (Iko Uwais - Mile 22, Wu Assassins TV series etc) and Blind Master (Peter Mensah - Spartacus TV series etc). 

With his dark historical past and desire for revenge, Snake Eyes was in dilemmatic position on joining the clan. Things got further complicated with the appearance of Baroness (Úrsula Corberó - Money Heist TV series etc) who was member of terrorist organization called Cobra, and her enemy, a member of G.I. Joe named Scarlett (Samara Weaving - Ready or Not, The Babysitter etc).

So what would happen to Snake Eyes? Find them all in this action movie.

End of Brief Story Line

You know, I really had high hopes for this movie, especially from the trailer which looked interesting and had high octane action scenes. But when I watched the film, somehow I was not really satisfied. To be honest, I thought the story telling was not fascinating and did not really captivate me. I had seen the previous 2 G.I. Joe movies which I kind of enjoyed. Those two did not have wonderful story either but I was entertained by the movies as a whole, probably because in addition to cool action sequence and visual effects, the characters were quite engaging with plenty of humor.

This time around the focus of the story was one of G.I. Joe character Snake Eyes. I have grown to like him in the previous movies as the very mysterious looking Ninja with amazing sword skill. And there was a bit of his childhood history shown in 2013 G.I. Joe: Retaliation which looked good. However the story here was completely different. I could not help think that had the story been told in similar way, I probably would have enjoyed it better.

In terms of action though, I was really entertained. The fight scenes were awesome to my opinion and there were plenty. I enjoyed the fights on the streets of Tokyo, especially the ones they had before the finale at the Arashikage castle. Some amazing sword fight scenes looked fantastic enough, although if I had to be critical, I thought the use of what seemed to be hand-held cameras were quite disturbing as it make the fights looked shaking. But the rest of them were satisfactory to my opinion.

I read that critics were not too happy with the film where one of the complains was the choice of Henry Golding as the titular character. For this part, unfortunately I have to agree. Despite trying his best to suit the character and showing some great fight skills, I thought he seemed out of place. Probably because I was too accustomed with his more charming, dramatic, rom-com roles in the past as opposed to hardened & serious character here. Andrew Koji's talent in the fight scenes were truly maximized, while the rest like Iko Uwais, Samara Weaving and Úrsula Corberó sadly felt like unimportant support cast. 

The film itself had a duration of surprisingly long of about 2 hours including closing credits. There was a bit of brief scene during the credits which was definitely to serve as teaser for a sequel. The movie makers certainly had their eyes on making this into a new franchise and likely to add new characters in the future. However, looking at the poor box office performance, it seemed highly unlikely now. It's too bad though and quite surprising, especially with Robert Schwentke as the director who had pretty successful movies to his credit such as Flightplan, Red, The Time Traveller's Wife and few others.

Overall I thought that this movie could have been more enjoyable if it has a better engaging story and interesting supporting characters. I personally like Snake Eyes origin story better as told in G.I. Joe: Retaliation compared to the story here. But if I only look for cool action sequence, I'd say this one did its job. So if you do not really mind the story and just want to see some good actions and few spectacular fights, then this one should be satisfying enough.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars