“Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” Theatrical Poster
The upcoming G.I. Joe spin-off, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (aka Snake Eyes), a martial arts-heavy actioner with an all-star cast hits theaters on July 23, 2021.
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins stars Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) as the iconic titular character with Andrew Koji (Bruce Lee’s Warrior) stepping into the role of Storm Shadow.
Rounding out the cast is Iko Uwais (The Raid) as Hard Master, Úrsula Corberó (Money Heist) as The Baroness, Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) as Scarlett, Haruka Abe (47 Ronin, She’s Just A Shadow) and Takehiro Hira (The Eternal Zero). Kenji Tanigaki, known for his work in Big Brother, Wu Xia and SPL will be handling the film’s fight/stunt work.
The film centers on Snake Eyes seeking revenge for his father’s death by joining a ninja clan and in the process finding acceptance (via THR).
G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes is directed by Robert Schwentke (RED, The Time Traveler’s Wife) from a script by Evan Spiliotopoulos (The Huntsman: Winter’s War). Lorenzo di Bonaventura (The Meg) and Hasbro are producing, via Paramount, Allspark Pictures and Skydance.
In the previous G.I. Joe films, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow were played by Ray Park (Accident Man) and Lee Byung-hun (I Saw the Devil), respectively.
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins hits theaters on July 23, 2021. Watch the Newest Trailer below:
Ah man! I liked Ray Park and Lee Byung Hun in the roles! They didn’t need to be recast!
Yea… They both were awesome in those roles, plus they can actually do the action…
Henry Golding will be fine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdGtugTZ9GY
Unless we’re living under rocks? We’re all living under rocks in order to survive!
For some reason I’m mildly excited about this one. More than Mortal Kombat(not cheesy enough) and Shang Shi(Marvel humor yuck), the other Asian American blockbuster actioners of recent. I could be totally off the mark since the GI Joe reboots haven’t been so hot, but… maybe it’s because Kenji Tanigaki is doing choreography and he helped craft some of the best fights ever? Could mean nothing if the camerawork and editing kills it though.
And you know what, Henry Golding… if they ever remake The Killer, they should cast him as the lead. He’s leading action man material, just waiting for a chance. He reminds me a bit of young Chow Yun Fat. If you laugh, just remember Chow Yun Fat was also typecast as a rom com kinda guy until John Woo turned his career around.
“Rounding out the cast is Iko Uwais”
He should the lead character. Not that it matters since I’ll skip this one.
Why is Iko Uwais the teacher? We don’t want to see him play Mr. Miyagi, we want to see him F people up with bloody finesse. Can someone please give Garath Evans a few million budget so he can make a good movie with Iko. What’s going on here?
What’s going on here is the disappointing tradition of execs thinking a foreign superstar with limited English can’t headline a movie either alone or at all, and is better off in a supporting or cameo role. See: Black Rain, Cannonball Run, The Matrix sequels, Lethal Weapon 4, Rogue One, Fast and Furious 7, Mile 22.
If they’re lucky they’ll move past that phase into getting paired with a black actor phase.
Then if they’re really lucky they’ll get a few solo projects usually by hack directors. Occasionally they’ll get super lucky and jump straight to this phase, like Jackie did with The Protector or Bruce Lee with Enter the Dragon (which is only good because Lee fought for control over his picture against the hack Robert Clause).
Tony Jaa never got past phase 1, so we’ll see about Iko. Maybe they’ll have the two of them together to headline a movie only for a white kid to be the protagonist.
Ironically, Iko’s English far surpasses Tony Jaa’s. But I will make a case that while nobody’s tuning into their favorite ass-kicker’s movies for his/her ability to roll off reams of dialogue, the ability to convey menace and bad-assery with a few choice lines is definitely an asset. You can debate on how effective Liam Neeson is as an “action” star, but there’s a reason why his phone threat to the kidnappers is the most replayed scene in Taken. As is Russell Crowe’s “I am Maximus Decimus Meridius” speech in Gladiator. Or even Rambo’s short and succinct “Murdoch….I’m getting to get you”, “Live For Nothing…Or Die for Something” lines. It’s part of the whole “Not to be fucked with” package. But I will agree that given Iko’s English which is improving by the movie and his more than capable supporting roles in otherwise average fare like Mile 22 and Stuber, there’s no reason why the man can’t be headlining Hollywood movies by now.
Agree. Two words: Arnold. CONAN.
Yeah Arnie is the outlier here. He won’t be playing Hamlet (well, he kinda did in Last Action Hero:-) ) or MacBeth anytime soon, but something about the way he delivers his line in that accent coupled with his physicality just makes it all work.
Sorry…typo…obviously that Rambo line should be “Murdoch…..I’m COMING to get you”. I also missed another cheesy Stallone one-liner but super effective when delivered in his baritone: You’re a disease..and I’m the cure”
A. I’m down for a new ninja movie
B. This isn’t snake eyes
C. Drop the Down syndrome “New level..” mantra song. It sucks, doesn’t fit… and it sucks.
Baroness and Scarlett seem alright but there is absolutely ZERO canon story here so why even call it Snake Eyes? I’ll still watch it because the action looks legit and I love ninjas.
But ninja, please!
I feel like a sucker for supporting this movie. Not only does it insult audiences, but it shoots itself in the foot on multiple occasions.
Henry Golding did what his job required and showed commitment to doing his own action, but the character he plays is an asshole. It was cringe inducing to see the man who would be Snake Eyes act like a jackass and knowingly help out a terrorist organization and betray the people who gave him everything. And the reason why he decides to go against Cobra comes off as too little too late.
Andrew Koji was the real hero of the movie, taking in a homeless Snake Eyes and helping him, only for him to get spat on and lose everything. He was justified in wanting to kill him.
The action is well shot and choreographed, but it’s constantly being interrupted. Every time a scene gets going, the movie cuts to something else. Sometimes the action will also start, stop, start up again and stop again. It was annoying.
With critics being savage, I don’t think this movie will get sequels which is a shame because the potential for something really cool was here.
Thanks for the write up Andrew. I’ll definitely check it out (out of pure curiosity). Sucks that the action us good, but interrupted.
Am with you Andrew.
SNAKE EYES is every bit the plodding charmless affair I half expected it was going to be.
Snake Eyes, a noble silent warrior is now a duplicitous asshole you long to have his ass handed to him (if not head) half way through the movie, a red flag cause he’s the fucking hero! Storm Shadow is a hot headed weakling and the whole thing is exacerbated with woeful miscasting. Swap Golding and Koji around and you’d get a movie exponentially improved by at least 30%. Iko is predictably wasted, suffering the ignominy of having the movie cut away from his fights TWICE.
But in a way, the suckiness of films like these is a sort of vindication for the much-maligned Stephen Sommers. Watching the dour THE MUMMY: CRUISE EDITION sent me rummaging into my DVD pile to revisit THE MUMMY and THE MUMMY RETURNS, reveling in Sommers’ exuberant, frequently silly but never less than fun takes. And now SNAKE EYES is going to have me fire up my blu-rays of GI JOE RISE OF COBRA & GI JOE RETALIATION* in rapid succession. At least they had the good sense to avoid the long meaningful glances, smoldering glares not to mention the over-wrought and faux-serious dialogues SNAKE EYES frequently relies on to convince you they’re shooting the 4th act of MACBETH instead of an action movie hatched off a fucking toy line.
SNAKE EYES is emblematic of everything wrong with today’s approach to remakes that strive to be “grounded” and “contemporary” which means “Grounded” translates as “Leeched of every ounce of fun, exuberance and excitement” while “contemporary” means “Falling in line with the current accepted Political Commentary” where you basically pat yourself on the back for having addressed years of “ethnic type-casting” of having your sole Asian character in the Joe universe be an evil Ninja by making his heroic counterpart Asian as well.
Pop Quiz, Hot Shot: But if your Half-English, Half Malaysian actor is playing a Grade A Douchebag and his Half-English, Half-Japanese co-star’s character is written as a weak, impetuous half-wit while you side-line your electrifying Indonesian Martial Arts Star, how is this a step forward for Representation?
And the action is abysmal. Every sword clang is a telling rebuke I should just switch this shit off and re-watch the magnificent RUROUNI KENSHIN movies again.
* Am aware RETALIATION is directed by John Chu. The argument still stands.
I’m so glad there’s other movies that wash my palette of this. The more I think of Snake Eyes, the more it ranks as one of the worst movies of the year.
“The more I think of Snake Eyes, the more it ranks as one of the worst movies of the year.”
I haven’t seen ‘Snake Eyes’ (and at this point have no intention to!), but as far as worst movie of the year, I’ll say it has some pretty stiff competition from the latest Netflix atrocity, ‘Sweet Girl’.
And I hoped you would do The Beast first. Haha!
I’ve just seen it and I can’t say even one favorite thing about the movie. I had some hopes that bringing Kenji Tanigaki (who did a great job in Enter the fat Dragon with Donnie Yen) and Iko Uwais under one project would be good on the action department at least.
Oh was I wrong – the action is lifeless, devoid of all nice moves, camera angles, and consistency in execution. The writing was bland, the screenplay too, the actors were cringy to the point that one of them in particular (The Baroness) became a comic relief in my eyes due to her cringe-worthy performance as well as just being plain unattractive as a woman. And most of the Japanese actors trying to convey a line in English on-screen – my ears still hurt from the sonic pain.
Wasted potential, that would summarise the experience for me, Henry Golding did well in The Gentlemen, but here he had the charisma and expression of a gutted fish, and his action scenes were painful to watch. The first two movies in the franchise are my guilty pleasure and they had more merits than this origin/reboot story, which says a lot about the quality of Snake Eyes emergence onto the big screen.