G.I. Joke

Brendan Fraser won. Dennis Quaid lost.

Fraser, the amiable goofball star of such films as “The Mummy” and “Gods and Monsters,” has a small role in “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” and chose not to receive credit for it. Quaid, the generally more serious star of “The Rookie” and “The Big Easy,” has a slightly larger role in “G.I. Joe,” but his name is in the credits.

Poor Quaid. The man had a reputable career.

The same will never be said of Channing Tatum, the film’s actual star. Tatum is hilariously inept as a sensitive tough guy who speaks in a monotone without inflection or punctuation.

In one of those jaw-droopingly awful performances that are just so deliciously entertaining to watch, Tatum stars as Duke, whose name, you will notice, is not G.I. Joe. The term “G.I. Joe” initially referred to the ideal of the U.S. soldier, an ordinary grunt plugging away in the infantry with the strength and courage expected of an American fighting man.

That was the meaning in the 1945 William Wellman movie “The Story of G.I. Joe,” starring Burgess Meredith (as reporter Ernie Pyle) and Robert Mitchum. But the new “G.I. Joe” movie isn’t based on the old “G.I. Joe” movie, it’s based on a television cartoon series that was created to sell toys that took their name from the old “G.I. Joe” movie.

Throw in the explicit (and almost certainly failed) desire to become a franchise picture, the worst script of the year so far and the gloriously incompetent direction of Stephen Sommers and you wind up with a film that could only appeal to 6-year-old boys playing with their action-figure toys, but with a plot, violence and language sufficient for a well-earned PG-13 rating.

In this film, Duke and his friend Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) aren’t grunts, they’re in Special Ops. And then they are recruited to a team of Extra Special Ops, an international group of soldiers inexplicably called G.I. Joes. They’re the people who keep the world safe for democracy, or at least blockbuster movies, by fighting evil megalomaniacs bent on world domination.

Enter a wealthy arms merchant played by Christopher Eccleston, who plans to destroy many of the world’s biggest cities while cackling such things as, “When these missiles detonate, the world will turn to the most powerful man on the planet!”

His equally evil villainess, Sienna Miller, turns out to have been Duke’s former fiancee. What are the odds? She joined the dark side after blaming Duke for the death of her brother, Joseph Gordon-Leavtt. We know this because we see it in two or three flashbacks. “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is not afraid to ask “How many flashbacks can you put in one movie?” even when the answer is “Too many.”

One of these flashbacks shows the sparsely attended military funeral for the brother, held in the rain, at which Duke arrives late, on a motorcycle, in black leather and dark glasses (in the rain!) and keeps his distance as the graveside service ends.

“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is not afraid to ask “How many clichés can you put in one movie?” Heck, it’s not even afraid to ask “How many clichés can you put in one scene.” Why is it that leather-wearing motorcycle guys always come late to their best friend’s funerals? Do they have something more important to do? Do they say, “My best friend is getting buried and I really want to be there, but first I think I’ll stop in for a cheeseburger?”

Speaking of clichés, the torturously drawn-out and poorly edited climax is shamelessly stolen from aspects of the first three “Star Wars” movies. As bad as the film is, it isn’t completely, scorchingly horrendous until this climax. But it goes on so long, it officially renders the film unwatchable.

It’s so bad, there may not even be a sequel.