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G.I. Joe: The Rise of CobraWe haven’t been to the movies in nearly two months. The last was Star Trek back on May 17. Since then we came close to seeing Up, but the noisy kids in the ticket line sacred us away from that. It hasn’t been a good summer for movies.

This weekend, three were on deck we were interested in: Julie & Julia, The Getaway and G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra. We picked the  big, splashy one and it was not the right choice.

As a special effects reel, G.I. Joe was pretty good: cool fight suits, spiffy flying craft, nifty pulse guns and the Eiffel Tower gets eaten and destroyed. As a movie with an engaging plot I found it to be a bore. We’ve seen this madman out to destroy the world many times over and seen it done better. Plus, I’m to the point I expect more from my comics-to-movie translations. I want substance like the first two X-Men movies or The Dark Knight or even substance-lite like Iron Man.

This is not to say I don’t like a good pop-corn movie, but even as one of those this one fell short for me becuase it felt like a re-tread. I chose not to spend money last month on Transformers becuase I felt like I’d been there already. I can see why Paramount didn’t let the critics screen this ahead of the release because then I might have been warned about what I was going to get for my $12.50.