The only thing i agreed with bob about is that this movie seams to have been written by elementary school children. plot, ridiculous... but that's a given for this movie so I'm not going to complain about that too much. characters, the good guys don't seam to care about human life, the bad guys don't seem to care about anything, and the only truly evil person in the movie wasn't even really set up until the last 5 minutes of the movie.
everybody in the movie seamed far too stupid and single minded to ever be trusted with a butter knife let alone super weapons. (except snake eyes, he graduated to steak knife, and fittingly that's all he used in the movie)
the biggest problem i had with the movie was its complete disregard for common sense, or the laws of physics. over the top action movie is fine, an over the top action movie that constantly relies on complete stupidity to increase the level of action and conflict... i just cant get behind.
I completely disagree with your James bond comparisons. international espionage action movies are supposed to be about abstractly believable good guys and bad guys outsmarting each other, with odd but possible weapons and gadgets, in extraordinary situations. this movie is about absurdly unbelievable good guys and bad guys out-dumbing each other, with stupid and impossible weapons and gadgets, in ridiculous illogical situations. this is strictly a child's movie that is being marketed to adults. this is exactly what you would get if spy kids had gone for a pg-13 rating and had less mature characters. (OK that was a little harsh)
so let me break this down.
!!!SPOILER RANT ALERT!!!! stop reading if you give a shit.
just to point out how generic and ridiculous this story line is i will not be using specific names.
fist frame of the movie: "In the not to distant future." this automatically means its ok to MST3K the movie, even on opening night.
first action scene: transporting the worlds deadliest new super weapon by ground, guarded by about 20 squishably soft foot soldiers, on a single lane road through uncontrolled territory, fallowed by helicopters.
-why are we developing super weapons in uncontrolled territory? why are there only a few soldiers transporting them by ground when we have helicopters? The weapons have more destructive potential than hydrogen bombs, so why are they all in a small easily steal-able suitcase?
...ambush...
Good Guys show up just in time... Good Guy commander throws security to the wind and explains everything to the only surviving foot soldiers... takes them to the base then explains even more.
Flash-back explaining the characters.
Training montage.
the Good Guy Commander puts the massively destructive warheads (more powerful than hydrogen bombs) in his office safe. obviously most generals are allowed to keep doomsday weapons in there office safe, since that must be the safest location in the worlds most advance military underground base.
...they get stolen...
Flash-back explaining the characters.
...stolen by the people who manufactured them...
Flash-back explaining the characters.
... those Bad Guys then have to break into a "particle accelerator" to "weaponize" the "weapons" that they manufactured. you would think they would be able to activate the weapons they built without having to inundate the audience with bullshit scientific lingo and an excuse to go to "Large European City" and have an action scene.
they kill some scientists.
luckily good guys forgot to bring a helicopter, again, so it turns into a foot vs car race to the "National Monument"...
the "National Monument" is destroyed, the "Large European City" is saved.
Bad Guys kidnap the Main Character who activates the homing beacon revealing the location of the Bad Guy base. (under the polar ice caps.)
Flash-back explaining the characters.
Bad guys fire the warheads... while all the Good guys are staring at them, the ninja shoots one of them with a missile. good thinking ray park ( hiding your face and not talking throughout the entire movie).
their is an underwater submarine battle. every submarine that gets hit spirals out of control and explodes. (instead of coming to a quick stop and gently floating away as the laws of physics would dictate.) we need underwater battles to look like space battles. the creators obviously didn't want to get caught doing anything realistic or new.
bad guy commander gets caught monologing .
untrained foot soldier has a dog fight with an ICBM at "Mach 6" (luckily only trained pilots in G-suits liquefy when they take sharp turns at "mach 6")
bad guy doctor gets caught monologing about a -Flash-back explaining the characters.
bad girl is being brainwashed and good guy Un-brainwashes her with the sheer force of his machismo.
Flash-back explaining the characters.
submarine chase through ice caves.
the self destruct makes the ice cap sink and crushes the bad guy base... (because ice sinks)
the actual bad guys from the actual toys and comic book are finally introduced and immediately imprisoned.
ridiculously predictable twist setting up franchise sequel.
credits role, you wake up and walk to the theater parking lot, dreaming of watchable movies, and wondering how this movie got away with showing no less than 4 people being impaled and 2 people get cut in half, but Terminator: Salvation didn't show a single person die on camera.
Good thing you have the funny punctuation guy around. I'm pretty fond of him. Especially how he always nails (evil) U.S. arrogance and foreign policy. (Hopefully not as bad as under Obama.)
