The one thing to keep in mind when seeing G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is that this is not meant to be high art–just pure entertainment. In other words, don’t expect it to earn a Best Picture nomination. The movie doesn’t bring anything new to the table as far as original ideas are concerned, but it sure looks pretty flaunting what it does have.

Twenty minutes in, you’ll get a good idea of what the rest of the movie is like. Everything revolves around four nanotechnology-based warheads. The good guys (Joes) want the city-destroying nanobombs in their hands while the bad guys (Cobra) aims to terrorize the world with them. The rest of the movie is essentially a big game of tug-of-war with the warheads as the rope.

The plot is formulaic and uninspired but the execution of its parts is both explosive and exciting. The high point of this explosive action is a chase scene in downtown Paris involving a tanked up Hummer, Duke and Ripcord in powered armor suits, and Scarlett on a motorcycle. The damage done to the City of Lights in this scene is massive and irreparable and highlights a conspicuous absence of consequences in the movie. So many people are killed, both combatants and civilians, that I’m surprised the movie managed a PG-13 rating.

One of the most impressive things about this film are the scenes with CGI. Stephen Sommers – who directed Van Helsing and The Mummy – is a director who has some experience with CGI and it shows. There are lots of aircraft and insane special effects throughout the movie and they all blend so seamlessly together it’s hard to tell what is stunt and what is CGI.

The film incorporates interesting back stories for some of their main characters. The flashbacks to the early years of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are done well, if slightly mishandled, while the back story between Duke and Baroness, which turn out to be central to the plot, will almost certainly be revisited in other G.I. Joe movies to come.

My biggest gripes about the movie are petty but I need to vent them anyway. To start, I thought painting the bottom half of Snake Eye’s face black and leaving it uncovered was a bad costume decision. Someone should have realized that it looked pretty stupid. I was also upset with the idea of having ice fall down through the water to crush those below. I can assure you that ice never sinks to the bottom of a glass of water or any body of water for that matter.

Having gotten those quibbles off of my chest I still approve of this movie. Ultimately it’s a better vehicle for selling action figures than it is for boosting anyone’s acting career, but let’s face it–I didn’t watch it for the acting. And compared to other movies inspired by TV shows/comic books/action figures like He-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra more than holds its own. Expect a sequel sometime in the not too distant future with more of the same sword fights, shoot outs and explosions.