Ice floats, or how I learned you don’t need science to write a blockbuster

This past weekend, a friend and I decided to venture to our local theater and spend a few bucks on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra—the latest Hollywood blockbusting opus—with the explicit intention of making fun of a plot which promised to be ridiculous at every turn. I left the theater suffering from both a stunned silence and something like a muted exaltation at being able to pen this review. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to make something perfectly clear: G.I. Joe is not only the worst movie of the summer, it’s doubtless in the running for worst of the year and, some would argue, worst of all time. Yes, worse than Transformers 2.

We entered the cinema toting popcorn and an ill-fated soft drink, expecting a weak (or nonexistent) plot bolstered by a formidable kaleidoscope of special effects. You know, usual summer Hollywood. While G.I. Joe certainly held up the first end of the bargain, offering one of the most disjointed and infantile plots in modern memory, what was so staggering about this film was how it failed to deliver on the second. Like Transformers 2, the visuals became bloated, fast-moving and difficult to comprehend before the camera switched inexplicably to something else. Only, unlike the Transformers movies, these visuals were bad—really bad. At several points, the effects were so under-polished as to become laughable, like an arbitrary school of terribly rendered CG tuna which would have been more at home in a film from the early 80s.

Amidst the cartoony explosions and painfully under-developed CG disaster sequences, like an uncanny Eiffel Tower collapsing into a Seine whose water simulation belonged in a mid-90s Sci-Fi Channel original made-for-TV movie, it was understandably quite easy to forget exactly what was going on.

The muddled and downright silly plot failed to clarify anything. An ambiguous group of bad guys, at first operating under the auspices of fictional arms dealer MARS and eventually becoming the famous terrorist syndicate “Cobra,” creates a form of nanotechnology that can essentially do anything—eat buildings, control subservient soldiers’ minds, dissolve humans—effectively filling any inconvenient logical holes in the movie’s plot line. MARS sells this technology to NATO in the form of four warheads, which are transported by Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayons), two ultranationalistic and patriotic “American heroes” inexplicably serving for NATO in the “not too distant future.” Shortly after coming under attack by Cobra operatives,¹ these two talking heads are rescued and subsequently join the G.I. Joe team, an exclusive outfit of international special operatives run by Dennis Quaid.²

Over the course of the film, the Joes face off against Cobra on several continents, standing idly by while the Baroness (Sienna Miller) destroys the Eiffel Tower, causing no casualties, immediately following an unrealistic fight which doubtless resulted in dozens dead or dismembered and millions of dollars in property damage. Bravo, Joes. The Baroness manages to kidnap Duke and transport him to Cobra’s secret underwater military base beneath the Arctic ice cap. Here’s where things begin getting ridiculous.

The Joes infiltrate the underwater base and begin making an effort to rescue Duke from having his brain infested with nanobots which would render him subservient to almighty Cobra Commander. OK, that’s fine if you accept the premise of the film. Dennis Quaid leads a massive fleet of submarines against a complementary Cobra version, and they have a battle more reminiscent of Star Wars than Das Boot. Eh, fair enough. The Joes proceed to destroy the underwater submarine base by detonating charges inside the polar ice cap and SINKING HUGE PIECES OF ICE to crush the facility. Alright, are you kidding me?

Did the screenwriters honestly not understand that basic law of science, obvious to most children and some primates? Guys, ice is less dense than water. It floats. Ice floating is the reason the polar ice caps were above the Cobra base in the first place. Ice floating is the reason life exists on this planet, and maybe others, by allowing aquatic life to flourish beneath the surface despite subzero temperatures above. Guys, pour yourself a tall, cool glass of water. Hell, go ahead and take a sip. Now, drop in a few ice cubes. Report back with your findings.

For lackluster special effects, an incoherent and childlike story, and for sheer scientific misunderstanding, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra earns a 0.2 out of 10.³