Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (CREDIT: Ed Araquel/Paramount Pictures/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Skydance)

Starring: Henry Golding, Andrew Koji, Úrsula Corberó, Samara Weaving, Iko Uwais, Haruka Abe, Takehiro Hira, Peter Mensah

Director: Robert Schwentke

Running Time: 121 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Swordplay

Release Date: July 23, 2021 (Theaters)

At one point in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins*, the titular hero is dropped into a pit where he must face off against some very big and very hungry anacondas. And that’s about the only moment that I understood. Well that, and the other scene with the anacondas. Couldn’t this entire movie have been about Henry Golding fighting snakes? Instead, he and his crew square off against the classic G.I. Joe foe known as Cobra, who I really wish were actual cobras. Now that’s a movie that I would recommend. As it is, though, all I can say is that maybe this will be really fun for G.I. Joe obsessives, but for everyone else, I imagine it will be pretty impenetrable.

(*-It’s a rather unwieldy title, but I’m happy to write out the whole thing to differentiate it from the delightful 1998 Brian De Palma/Nicolas Cage thriller.)

In its bare-bone basics, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins isn’t too hard to comprehend. It’s a classic origin story, after all: dead parent, living off the grid, training in a foreign country, passing a series of tests to prove warrior bona fides, et cetera, et cetera. In sussing out why I found this so much less compelling than, say, Batman Begins, I determined that it might just have something to do with the amount of time spent on the actual origin of it all. How a hero became a hero in the first place can be interesting, but generally insofar as it provides context for where that hero is headed. And this movie doesn’t really tell us where Snake Eyes is headed, nor do I care to find out.

Anyway, back to those anacondas. They’re absolutely HUGE, in case I didn’t make that clear enough already. If you can  manage to watch only their scenes and then fill out your taxes during the rest of the movie, then I would say go for it. It’s also worth noting that at one point, Cobra is described as employing the tactics of “violence, extortion, and fear,” which is just poetically wonderful. Who knew that such a shadowy collective would focus so much on something as concrete as extortion?

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is Recommended If You Like: G.I. Joe lore, I guess?

Grade: 2 out of 5 Dice