We knew that it was going to be bad. So bad in fact, that the movie was not screened for reviewers ahead of time. This is a sure sign that the studio knows the movie will be trashed by reviewers. But we went anyway. We went fully knowing the experience would probably be grueling and mind-numbing. Dissapointed we were not, expectations were fully met.

To give you some history here, I, like many other men my age, grew up watching GI Joe every Saturday during my formative years. I used to marvel at the sheer number of bullets and lasers flying around. The truly amazing thing was that no one ever died, well at least none of the main characters. So, it was inevitable that I would pony up my ten dollars and see this train wreck waiting to happen. I imagine that for thousands of other 20 something guys, it was also inevitable, which is why this steaming pile of mediocrity has pulled in 98 million at the domestic box office at the time of this writing.

So, lets go over the plot...oh wait...there is none. We basically get explosions, followed by chase scenes, Dennis Quaid yelling at people, more explosions, missiles and subs, end credits. I generaly know the story of GI Joe, and I had NO CLUE what was going on. There was some secret NATO weapon (like NATO is developing weapons, they can't even properly deploy to Afghanistan), which is stolen, and has to do with the origin of many of the characters. Two soldiers, Channing Tatum, and Marlon Wayans, who were part of the unit protecting this weapon that was lost, get recruited into GI Joe to help recover it. GI Joe is no longer an American unit, it is an international team of supersoldiers. This is of course a nod to PCdom. They then proceed to chase these people all over the place, run in some cool suits and get the Eiffel Tower destroyed. Nothing about this is good, but it is fast paced and has lots of explosions.

As far as the acting.....well when your most well known star is Dennis Quaid, you know what you are going to get. The beautiful people look beautiful, and they were the right clothes, so at least it has that going for it. Dennis probably acted his roll the best of all the characters, being disgruntled and moody, but still hitting all the right lines. His knowing is half the battle was by far the best 3 seconds of the film.

So go see this with expectations set appropriately. You will then enjoy GI Joe for what it is. Of course, you could probably just watch the preview twenty times in a row and get a great series of action sequences, and know as much about the plot as I did AFTER seeing the film.