Film Review - Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins (2021)

It wouldn’t be summer blockbuster season without some reboots, would it, even in a kind of post-pandemic world. “IP, IP, IP” we hear you cry. Rest assured, there’s still plenty to go around, but this one puzzled us right from its inception. A prequel/origin story about Snake Eyes from GI Joe? At a cost of almost $100million? Are we really sure? Granted, the first foray into Joe territory back in 2009 was at least brainless, dumb fun but its sequel – featuring Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson in superfluous cameos – left a lot to be desired. So why not try again? Why, indeed…

An ancient Japanese clan called the Arashikage has been trying to keep the peace for centuries. Always on the lookout for new fighters, they happen across Snake Eyes (Henry Golding), a loner fighter whose sole purpose in his adult life is to find those who murdered his father decades before. He finally has some semblance of home and family in the form of Tommy (Andrew Koji) and Akiko (Haruka Abe) but are his more peaceful surroundings just another stepping stone in his hunt for justice?

It all starts so promisingly: we meet Snake Eyes and learn about his checkered and sad past, the vengeful fuel that drives him to bring to justice those who wronged him and avenge his father. All the while, some brilliantly choreographed and breathless action set-pieces take our attention, feeling brutal and hefty where some of the other Joe films haven’t, with melodies of Casino Royale, Batman Begins and The Raid coursing through its veins. Then, once Old Eyes begins to get closer to the truth, the film deflates like a lost birthday balloon, eventually blowing about in the wind making weird noises (or, in this case, repetition upon repetition) before it falls to the ground with a bigger thud than its predecessor.

Directed by Robert Schwentke, best known for the Divergent sequels, battles manfully to add some substance and propulsion to it all but the script’s tiresome plotting, lame dialogue, and poor characters make it almost impossible. For a film such as this, you’d expect at least a half-decent array of CGI enhancements and the like, but for a large portion, they all seem both rushed and done on an old computer rather than something state of the art as seen at the disposal of the Arashikage clan.

Its flabby, incoherence rubs off on its talented cast, too, with only Weaving’s all-too-brief runout as Scarlett (who has one of the better fight sequences in its increasingly dull second half) and Koji’s soon-to-be Storm Shadow penetrating through the slog, as does the ever-brilliant Iko Uwais but he, like those aforementioned, is relegated to a woefully underused extended cameo. Golding, though, feels miscast in the lead and his turn is as messy and unrefined as his American accent. As we have seen in most notably the wonderful Monsoon, he’s a fantastic performer, but this doesn’t suit him and, for many, will sadly settle any of those James Bond rumours.

A case of “No, Joe, No”, this one.