OH NO JOE! Paramount won't screen GI Joe for critics.

This does not bode well...

Quote :

LOS ANGELES – It's the biggest movie of the summer that practically no one has seen.

"G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" opens Friday, but Paramount Pictures isn't screening the blockbuster for critics beforehand. Only a select few writers from blogs and movie Web sites have seen it for review — such as Harry Knowles, the self-professed "Head Geek" from Ain't It Cool News — and their opinions have been mostly positive.

Instead, the studio says it's intentionally aiming the movie at the heartland, at cities and audiences outside the entertainment vortexes of New York and Los Angeles. Paramount held a screening Friday for 1,000 military service members and their families at Andrews Air Force Base; it's also focusing marketing efforts in places like Kansas City, Charlotte, N.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Pop quiz, folks: Can anyone recall a single film that was not screened for critics that didn't turn out to be a huge bomb? Hell, the tendencies for such films to flop can be considred a self-fulfilling prophecy ("No screening? What are they trying to hide?")

Not that The Rise Of Cobra is expected to more than, at best, a stupid fun popcorn movie. But this sets the "This Is Going To Suck HARD" alarms off.

You seriously thought this would even be watchable?

I wish I was so optimistic. I expect that this movie will affect the audience in a way similar to opening the Ark of the Covenant.

Freezer wrote:

Can anyone recall a single film that was not screened for critics that didn't turn out to be a huge bomb?

Financially? Sure, since a lot of the films not screened are genre pictures; it seems like horror films are almost never given advance screenings anymore, and they often do well. Can films do well critically after not screening? There are probably examples, but they're likely in those same genre films (or small films from independent studios) rather than big Hollywood action blockbusters.


It's like the studio's afraid of losing its 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yes, it will have a big opening weekend.

But nowadays that's not really an indicator of whether a movie is successful. The new indicator seems to be whether a movie has "legs" after the first big push to sustain a decent run.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine had a huge opening, then dropped dramatically in its second week. So did Terminator: Salvation. Neither did as well as expected.

Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, by contrast, had great openings and then sustained that with long runs where it stayed strong.

Amazingly, this movie is actually getting a lot of good reviews now that it's out, mostly of the "It's stupid, but it's a fun kind of stupid" variety. Check out this thread at the Agony Booth, for example. I'm considering going to see it this weekend if only for lulz and to make a Movies in Fifteen Minutes version.

GI Joe had trouble managing a plot for a twenty minute episode, let alone a movie. I don't look forward to the reviews for this one.

I'd watch it, if only for the reason that it can't possibly be worse than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Malganis wrote:

it can't possibly be worse than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Wanna bet?

Malganis wrote:

I'd watch it, if only for the reason that it can't possibly be worse than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Apparently, a movie can't be bad enough by your standards that I won't like it. I loved Transformers, and I'll probably love GI Joe.

Huh. It was on about 75% on Rotten Tomatoes last time I looked, now it's on 36%. With one or two exceptions, though, even the negative reviews of it I've read have said it's stupid fun. One review noted that it gained immeasurably in comparison with this year's other blockbusters like Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2.

I liked Terminator Salvation, I loved Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, This has all the explody goodness of those two plus Evil!Nine and more exploded cars than the blues brothers and an entire season of Top Gear combined.

You'll forgive me if I don't care what some beardy tossers on the internet think about it and watch it anyway.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

GI Joe had trouble managing a plot for a twenty minute episode, let alone a movie.

So did Transformers, although they never thought to use rape as a plot device!

Somath Cegem wrote:

I liked Terminator Salvation, I loved Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, This has all the explody goodness of those two plus Evil!Nine and more exploded cars than the blues brothers and an entire season of Top Gear combined.

You'll forgive me if I don't care what some beardy tossers on the internet think about it and watch it anyway.

I really liked Terminator Salvation, too.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Yes, it will have a big opening weekend.

But nowadays that's not really an indicator of whether a movie is successful. The new indicator seems to be whether a movie has "legs" after the first big push to sustain a decent run.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine had a huge opening, then dropped dramatically in its second week. So did Terminator: Salvation. Neither did as well as expected.

Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, by contrast, had great openings and then sustained that with long runs where it stayed strong.

Which is a damn shame, because Star Trek and Transformers were offensively bad, while X-Men Origins was just "eh, more Wolverine."

Lysander wrote:

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

GI Joe had trouble managing a plot for a twenty minute episode, let alone a movie.

So did Transformers, although they never thought to use rape as a plot device!

Yeah, and look at how Transformers turned out as a movie.

Penguin wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

Yes, it will have a big opening weekend.

But nowadays that's not really an indicator of whether a movie is successful. The new indicator seems to be whether a movie has "legs" after the first big push to sustain a decent run.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine had a huge opening, then dropped dramatically in its second week. So did Terminator: Salvation. Neither did as well as expected.

Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, by contrast, had great openings and then sustained that with long runs where it stayed strong.

Which is a damn shame, because Star Trek and Transformers were offensively bad, while X-Men Origins was just "eh, more Wolverine."

I found Origin offensively bad for what they did to Deadpool WEAPON X

Somath Cegem wrote:

I liked Terminator Salvation, I loved Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, This has all the explody goodness of those two plus Evil!Nine and more exploded cars than the blues brothers and an entire season of Top Gear combined.

Better toss in a season of Mythbusters while you're at it.

Terminator Salvation was okay. But it lacked plot.

Just watched G.I JOE

Good action, plot was weaksauce. I could tell exactly what was going to happen and how plotwise nearly every time they had flashbacks.

I liked Revenge of the Fallen better than G.I. Joe- mainly because RotF was undiluted stupid fun, while GI Joe kept trying to shoehorn in serious backstory. The Duke/Baroness/Guy-Who-Became-Cobra-Commander relationship was just stupid and unnecessary.

Quote :

Paramount decided to not screen the film for print critics before its release and wanted to focus on internet critics

This meant they believed the Internet would like it better than the real critics.

Quote :

Based on 133 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra has a 'rotten' 38% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 4.7/10.

They were wrong.

Quote :

"This is an adult's interpretation of a childhood phenomenon,

Which means it will not live up to any childhood nostalgia you have. Of course this would be tough anyway, but COME ON! You had a real problem with Transformers, what with forgetting that the giant robots are the stars and all, but COME ON! G.I. Joe has a HUMAN cast! How hard can it be to make a good action movie?!

Evidently too hard for Stephen Sommers.

Somath Cegem wrote:

I liked Terminator Salvation, I loved Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, This has all the explody goodness of those two plus Evil!Nine and more exploded cars than the blues brothers and an entire season of Top Gear combined.

You'll forgive me if I don't care what some beardy tossers on the internet think about it and watch it anyway.

News just in, I was right, take that self important beardy tossers.

I offer the idea that this is because most film critics have their heads up their asses and wouldn't know an entertaining film if it bit them in the ass. Instead, the praise terrible movies like Chicago or O' Brother Where Art Thou.

So Paramount may have just skipped the condescension that would have poured forth from those clods. Or the movie is legitimately awful and Paramount doesn't want anyone to know it until AFTER they've paid ten bucks to see it.

Tough to call.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

I offer the idea that this is because most film critics have their heads up their asses and wouldn't know an entertaining film if it bit them in the ass. Instead, the praise terrible movies like Chicago or O' Brother Where Art Thou.

...I really have nothing to say other than if you think "Chicago" (which won 6 Oscars including Best Picture and made $300 million in box office) and "O Brother Where Art Thou" are terrible films, then your sense of taste must be horribly skewed.

...Chicago was bloody brilliant. Why are you so stupid? What did your mother smoke while pregnant with you? Quick, tell us so that we can save future generations!