What's to be baffled by?  Transformers 1 was a decent movie, the Mummy movies and Van Helsing were not.  And at the very least Transformers did have good special effects.

You are now unbaffled.

But at least Van Helsing had Kate Beckinsale.

I have to agree with you on this one, the plot in Salvation was so overthought. Then to have people tell me I was overthinking it by saying it was overthought pretty much sums up my opinion of modern day cinema - and action movies.

Subjective reasoning, I suppose.  Your statement, "the man has no feel for drama" and "a sense of humor that's adolescent at best" just seems to encapsulate Bay so much better.  Especially after Transformers 2.

Oh I'm not denying those words encapsulate Michael Bay, they totally do.  And I'm certainly not denying Transformers 2 was awful.  But if we were making a list of crappy action movie directors, Sommers would be at the top of mine.  Bay does at least know how to shoot the occasionally impressive action shot, he just does it with reckless abandon to other aspects of his films.  Sommers on the other hand can't even get his action sequences right - they're just one fake effect and silly stunt piled on top of another.

This thread is making me curious as to just how bad G.I. Joe is so I might give it a rental in the next week or two.

Not a fan but I would take her over Megan Fox.

Knowing now where you stand with Sommers will make your opinion on the film all the more interesting to read.  It seems, though, you've built yourself up to believe that it's going to be anything but good.  Negativity does tend to stand out more, so I suppose Razakin's estimate on the movie had more sway than mine or Wanderer's.  (It's kind of hard to discern whether Smeg liked the film as a whole or not.)

I wouldn't classify it as a "good" movie per se... but it's definitely a very entertaining one. I was never bored, which is more than I can say for Transformers 2.

Well, even if it was a movie based on comic books / series of toys, the whole movie just felt so stale that I didn't get much grip nor interest to watch it, even if I waited to see that movie, thanks to reading the old comics in my youth and playing with the figures.

Also, there was just some odd wtf-moments which really did annoy me, even if it was action movie where physics and other things are usually removed nicely, for example Scarlet's bike jump on Paris, I actually did recheck it again to see what the f--- she did with the bike, jumping few meters on the air with that bike. I mean give her a G.I. Joe special bike and I can easily see tha happen. Also the part where Baroness flies Duke off to the arctic, without much wearing any warm clothes and not saying anything about the place being cold, but bit later in the movie when Ripchord & co. arrives, they with proper clothes do say how cold is the place.

Also, you're pretty spot on Joe lacking on special effects. Usually Sommers movies do have better, atleast the first two Mummies did have nice effects when they did come up, and they were even good action movies. Haven't seen Van Helsing and probably will not see it, even if it has Wolverine and Beckinsale.

Well, I like my modern (as in 2000 and onwards) action movies with good action, humor and usually depending on the plot, not taking themselves so serious, like the brilliant Crank-series. But when the movie goes beyond 'switch the brains off and  enjoy the popcorns', even I with my seriously low taste buds start saying that the movie is horrible piece of shit.

Also, I want to say even if Michael Bay did butcher Transformers, I can't hate him because of The Rock. Though, I do believe that someone else directed it, but he did take the credits.

Well, the plot also nicely forgot everything about peopel did know about the war against Skynet. Or atleast I did never get the feeling that the resistance would have helicopters and A-10 Warhogs at their use. I always had the feeling it should be gritty, brutal, dark urban city guerrilla fights on the ruins of cities and in the sewers. But noooo, that what happens when shitty director and guys who partially wrote Catwoman to write the  script. I really do wonder if they even had seen original two movies. And to be honest, I could watch Joe again with ease than suffer the mindboring shit that Salvation was. Heck, even Bale didn't care to act on it. Though, that movie had one good part, the part where Marcus did talk with the computer played by Helena Bonham Carter. Also, the homages to earlier movies felt like "We must show that we know the earlier movies, hey let's use same kind of scenes + views to show it!".

Totally agree, the war seemed more guerrilla-like in the opening of T2, and that's always the way I envisioned it in my mind. The resistance certainly has much more technology (especially medical technology) at their disposal in Salvation than any of the previous movies seemed to suggest, which inadvertantly chips away at the idea of it being "mankind's victory." Also, the whole idea of an evil computer network taking human hostages is downright silly. If you're skynet and have Kyle Reese, kill him! The time-space continum would automatically take care of Connor!

Dude, Marcus' character really stole the whole movie. Bale may have fit the look I was expecting for John Connor (and he looks like a legitamate, dead-on older upgrade of T3's younger Connor) but he certainly didn't bring the series main character to life.

Agreed, the "Guns 'n' Roses" scene with the bike was lame and was more of a shameless plug-in than anything.

Marcus was the point of the movie and the part that Bale was originally offered. He insisted on portraying Connor, which was intended to be a smaller part. The movie could have been much more compelling if the concept of the Marcus character had remained the sole focus, but that would only have happened if Bale had accepted the part - which would mean no Sam Worthington, who was excellent in the role.

It's a catch-22; either way, Bale ruins Salvation.

I can't say that I'm too surprised that Bale would get anything he wants, but I don't think Bale's acting (or lack there of) was the sole thing that brought the movie down - once Bale was set on portraying Connor, didn't they have to tweak that role to make it more to his liking? Can't help but think I read that somewhere; if it is true he had his sticky fingers in the pie beyond acting that may also have had a hand in why Salvation was lacking.

One of my friends told me that G.I. Joe was actually a good movie, unlike the recent Transformers. He just expected it to be crap, as one would rightly reckon. That's because it does look like crap. But now that I've heard a confirmation in person that it's 'good' and my discovery it stars 이병헌 (he plays Storm Shadow), I'm going to have to watch it. He played a gangster in one of my favorite Korean movies - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456912/

Yeah, Lee's damned good in this film.  He plays up Storm Shadow with deliciously cold evilness.

Finally rented the movie last night.  Wish I hadn't.

G.I. Joe is a movie written for 10 year old boys, directed by a 10 year old boy.  As usual, Stephen Sommers can't even get his action scenes right as he jumps ADHD-style from one bad CGI effect to another with no sense of excitement in even a visceral sense.

As with Transformers 2 the story focuses exclusively on introducing as many characters and vehicles as possible to sell as toys, and though it goes without saying that the acting is bad, the level of badness still impresses.  Thespian highlights include Dennis Quaid attempting to vocalize while sticking his chest as far out and his chin as high up as possible, Sienna Miller seeing how much cleavage and leg she can show in a single camera frame (quite a lot), and the Duke guy twitching that little muscle in his jaw anytime he's meant to exhibit an emotion.

The Snake Eyes character is the most interesting by far - not coincidentally his face is hidden and he doesn't speak for the whole movie.

The Paris sequence is worth watching for the exo suite gimmick and some occasionally well-shot action, the rest of the movie is a complete waste of time.

Which isn't a bad thing.

And didn't you get enough warnings how shitty shit this movie is, I hope you didn't waste much dollars in renting this one.

I watched G.I. Joe this morning and it was much better than I expected. I had completely forgotten about Zartan and I loved the formation of Destro and Cobra Commander; this is essentially a prequel, since it shows their incipient days. My only significant complaint is that Snake Eyes and Cobra Commander didn't look like I remembered them - the masks were wrong. These types of alterations come with the territory though, as it happens in X-Men, Transformers, etc.

I found the backstory between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow to be rather forced. What was a young Westerner doing in the streets of Japan? How did a Korean feel to play a Japanese role?

I'm also not so sure about the jet Ripcord was flying at Mach 6; he went a good distance without refueling. Plus, he must've slowed down significantly by the time he reached D.C. and flew close to buildings, since the sonic booms probably would've caused more damage than the nanomites. (I looked for the article about higher Mach speeds, but I couldn't find it. Interesting stuff happens when you go faster than Mach 3; the sonic booms get really nasty.) Of course, these kinds of technical mistakes also come with the territory. They seemed to have forgotten about inertia when they designed the acceleration suits. While it's fine that they're armored, the internal organs don't really care about it. They'll keep moving and crash against your skeleton if you smack something at high speed.

I have to rate this movie very highly, since it was extremely entertaining and devoid of puerile humor. (The type of humor found in Transformers 2, for example, completely ruins a movie. Unless it is purposely advertised as an inane comedy. That's the problem, though. The advertising for Revenge of the Fallen made it out to be completely badass, yet it was filled with 3 year old humor. False advertising.)