Snake Eyes
A briefly entertaining, but deeply flawed movie.
SPOILERS, if you care (you probably don't)
The film opens with a kid, and his dad. Some men break into their house, and they capture the Dad. The leader of the group has some dice, and proposes a game where if the Dad rolls higher than he does, he lives. The Dad rolls a one on both dice - Snake Eyes. The man executes the Dad, and the kid runs away.
Some years pass. The kid, now a man - and known as Snake Eyes, because he is "unlucky" - is working for the Yakuza. Him and his friend Tommy escape, after the Yakuza boss discovers Tommy's identity, and tries to kill him. After the escape, Tommy reveals that he is actually super rich, and next-in-line to be the leader of a ninja clan in Japan. This clan exists to protect an Infinity Stone Sun Stone, which they must never use themselves.
After returning to the clan, Tommy tells Snake Eyes that he would like to recruit him into the clan for saving him from the Yakuza, but he must first complete 3 challenges to prove his skills/honour. Snake Eyes accepts. At night, Snake Eyes drives into Tokyo. In Tokyo, it is revealed that he was planted there by the Yakuza, and an organisation called Cobra. They tell him that if he steals the Sun Stone, they will give him the man who killed his Dad.
Snake Eyes does a challenge for the clan, has second thoughts about betraying them, then he goes back to the Yakuza/Cobra to tell them that the deal is off, and then they convince him to keep on going with some more details on his Dad's killer. This scenario happens twice, verbatim.
In one challenge, he has a vision of his Dad who says that he doesn't want to be avenged. He is just happy that Snake Eyes survived. Naturally, Snake Eyes ignores this advice, and proceeds with the whole revenge thing.
So the final challenge comes up, Snake Eyes fails it because "he is not pure of heart", or whatever. At night, he steals the Sun Stone. The clan finds out, and Tommy leaves to kill Snake Eyes. Meanwhile, Snake Eyes gives the Yakuza/Cobra the Stone, and they hand over his Dad's killer. Whilst Snake Eyes in interrogating the man, he confesses that his Dad was killed because Cobra ordered it. Snake Eyes has a change of heart, frees his Dad's killer, and goes after Yakuza/Cobra.
Tommy and Snake Eyes encounter each other on the road. Tommy attacks, and after a brief battle, he realises they are both on the same side, and the Yakuza/Cobra are going to attack his home. They form an uneasy alliance, and return to the clan.
The Yakuza/Cobra attack the clan. The Yakuza betray Cobra by refusing to give up the stone. Snake Eyes, the clan, Tommy, and Cobra form an uneasy alliance to defeat the Yakuza. Tommy uses the Stone to try and kill the Yakuza boss. Tommy's mother chastises him for using the stone, and strips him of his birthright. Tommy leaves.
Snake Eyes chases down the Yakuza boss, and kills him. He coincidentally also retakes the third challenge, which he previously failed, and succeeds.
In the epilogue, a representative from GI Joe arrives and tells Snake Eyes that his Dad was one of them, and he can join too. Snake Eyes mulls it over, but decides that he needs to track down Tommy. The clan gives Snake Eyes his costume, and the film ends.
In a post-credits scene, Tommy is on a plane, when Cobra approaches him, and asks him to work with them. He says yes, and they should call him "Storm Shadow".
Some other things to note:
The fight choreography seemed well-done, but the camera worked never really attempted to show it off.
Henry Golding cannot hold an American accent to save his life, and often reverted back to British half-way through a sentence.
There were lots of painfully obvious reveals, that the film wanted me to act all surprised about when they finally happen.
The film does that thing where the character only gets their suit/powers *right at the end of the movie*, so there is no time to actually try and enjoy it.
The Baroness character looks like she crawled right out of 2002.
I was always curious as to why in most superhero movies, the characters don't really get called their superhero names. Having spent an entire movie with a character who is always referred to as Snake Eyes or Snake - as well as Storm Shadow - I now completely understand why.
The CGI was sometimes acceptable, and sometimes really dodgy
