I really had no intention of turning this into Giant Geek Who Grew Up In the 80s Watching Too Many Cartoons week, but I guess it’s that time of year when all this stuff comes out. Besides, after being so surprised by how good Iron Man was this week, and then seeing this Burke Williams-masseuse-looking tool parade around as Stormshadow, I realized the great thing about Hollywood Studios is that you can always count on ’em. You can count on if they get one thing right, they’ll just about go outta their way to balance it off with 5 films of pure celluloid dengue fever. Evidence A: this craptastic first peek at the upcoming GI Joe movie’s Stormshadow. How they managed to take one of the only cool looking GI Joe guys and turn him into a waiter at Asia to Cuba is a heroic feat only a major studio could pull off. Now I was never a big fan of GI Joe (the first miniseries excepted), it always annoyed the hell outta me how no one EVER died — you could blow up a whole battalion of tanks and sure enough, hundreds of Cobras would be synchronized leaping from the burning wreckage. It’s the only show in history where 50,000 rounds could be fired at 2 guys running across an open field and no one would get hit (Ok, Ok, The A-Team). I couldn’t handle it — all I wanted was for Duke or Gung Ho to take a tap to the head. Gimme Robotech any day of the week. Anyway, regardless of my low expectations, this succeeds in lowering them just a bit more. Way to go, Paramount!
I swear to god, if Snake Eyes looks anything like this I won’t even rent the DVD. Nerd Promise.