The first Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins trailer already makes the new film look much better than the previous G.I. Joe movies, which relied heavily on CGI action shots. Though not much of the film has been revealed so far, the early images and footage for Snake Eyes look intriguing and exciting, with Henry Golding’s leading performance looking particularly promising. But can Snake Eyes truly succeed where the other G.I. Joe movies failed?
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was meant to revitalize the franchise for a new generation, in the same way that sister franchise Transformers had been revitalized by Michael Bay’s 2007 film. The result for G.I. Joe was far less successful, however, with Rise of Cobra receiving poor reviews from critics and falling significantly short of Transformers’ box office success. The sequel, 2013’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation, earned a similar critical response to the first, and a notably worse commercial performance. In both cases, critics called out the movies’ nonsensical writing, uneven visual effects, and cardboard characters.
Snake Eyes is already setting itself up for much greater success in a few key ways. For starters, the film - as the title implies - is more character-focused than its predecessors. By choosing a single G.I. Joe character like Snake Eyes and centering the story around him, the new movie may be able to create a much more compelling emotional through-line for viewers to become invested in. The singular focus on Snake Eyes might also help cut out some of the more bizarre extraneous plotlines that Rise of Cobra and Retaliation were criticized for.
From the trailer footage, Snake Eyes also looks like a movie that – despite the high number of ninjas – seems a bit more grounded than G.I. Joe’s previous films. Rise of Cobra and Retaliation embraced the franchise’s cartoon roots, but sloppy writing and special effects yielded an end result that felt more annoying than fun. Snake Eyes looks to be more interested in practical stunt work and martial arts duels than CGI-filled sci-fi battles, which should be a good change.
Of course, until Snake Eyes actually releases, there’s no guarantee that it will succeed where previous G.I. Joe films failed. Henry Golding and Andrew Koji are great picks to lead the cast as Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and what’s been released so far looks promising, but doubt will remain until the final version arrives. Fortunately, that won’t be too long of a wait, as Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is scheduled to release on July 23.
