I was excited for this movie. I made my darling boyfriend take me opening weekend to the local theater we don't even like because it was the only theater in town showing the movie. I love Tim Burton, I love Johnny Depp, I live it when they work together. Yes, some of their movies are kind of cheesy but they're full of character and heart and I love them! Everyone has their secret pleasures, right?
This movie did not tickle my fancy. At all. Actually, I'd be will to say that this is a crappy movie. The characters are not well developed, the movie is melodramatic in places where it would have done much better to be humorous instead and while I had heard that it took a different twist on the old television show, I was not aware that the movie was going to just openly mock the show. The movie started out humorous, showing the recently-awakened vampire trying to adjust to the 1970s and I was somewhat excited to see this motif continue but it didn't.
Honestly, I just didn't care about any of the characters or anything that happened to them. When things went wrong, instead of showing how the characters solved a problem, things just magically were in the next scene. Hardly even a montage. I need at least a montage!
I was and am very disappointed in this movie. I expected more.
The above is a movie we all expected to see this summer. This is a movie that was actually supposed to come out in about two weeks. But it won't. We will not get to see this potentially horrifically great, summer blockbuster, grin and stuff your face with popcorn kind of movie until... March 2013.
No, I didn't misspeak. The new G.I. Joe movie has been pulled by Paramount from the Summer 2012 lineup because they have The Fear. According to this NPR article*,the studio, who spends lots of money all year long on sometimes awful films, will not be releasing a summer movie this year. Their eyes are wide with horror as they watch seriously big budget movies like "John Carter" and "Dark Shadows" (review to come on "Dark Shadows.") crash and burn in the box office.
But why is it that these movies didn't do well? Could part of the problem be that the Disney Corporation changed the name of a well-known book from, "John Carter From Mars, " to the incredibly nondescript, "John Carter?" Could be. People got seriously fired over that one, that is for sure. But this probably isn't the whole problem, the problem is that the public may finally be getting tired of forking out their hard-earned cash for lack-luster films. Yes, a lot of these movies do appeal to things we love but how many of these movies can be made before the viewers feel like the studios are exploiting their childhoods rather than appealing to them? I mean, yes we all love superhero movies but how quickly can storyline be rebooted without causing whiplash?
The G.I. Joe movies appeal to 30-somethings men. They all watched the show when they were kids, they had fights with their dads that the toys were NOT dolls, they're ACTION FIGURES. There IS a difference! But let's face it, letting Hasbro be a major influence on the cinematic demographic may not be the best of choices if we actually want to watch quality films. Okay sure, the first Transformer's movie was mental candy. We all paid out to watch giant robots smack the shit out of each other and hot girls in tight shorts wash cars.
But that was 2007. The economy was better, most of us had jobs and movies were cheaper. I know, I know... "Back in my day, you could get two people into a movie and popcorn for $10 and the parking was free!" Times change, economies tank, things happen. One of the things the media kept repeating was that no matter how bad things got, people would always still go to the movies and watch tv. Even in bad times, movies were a constant. Well, I guess that isn't true. The movies have gotten bad enough and expensive enough that we've stopped going to the movies simply to go to the movies. We actually want to get our money's worth from the experience. If the movie looks to be so-so, we can wait and rent it from the red box or off of Netflix(because, oh yeah! The majority of our video stores are extinct).
So what does this say for Paramount and G.I. Joe 2? Not a lot of good things. It appears that Paramount has spent a great deal of money on this movie and yet knows that they have an inferior product in their hands. By showing us, the consumers that they have The Fear, I'm pretty sure they have doomed themselves. By condemning G.I. Joe 2 to a March 2013 release date, everyone is going to forget about them. "Hey, whatever happened to that one movie?" It will just... disappear.
This is the beginning of the end, Paramount. Play your cards smart.
