Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

I remember walking into a half-empty theater in July 2021, still smelling faintly of the industrial-strength hand sanitizer they were pumping into the lobby, and thinking that Henry Golding had the hardest job in Hollywood. He wasn't just playing a ninja; he was trying to resuscitate a franchise that had already flatlined twice before, all while the world was still debating whether it was safe to share an armrest with a stranger. My own viewing experience was a bit surreal—I was the only person in the theater besides a guy three rows down who fell asleep so hard he started snoring during the climactic sword fight. Honestly, by the time the credits rolled, I kind of envied his nap.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is a movie caught in a violent tug-of-war with itself. On one side, you have a surprisingly grounded, moody Yakuza thriller about a man seeking his father’s killer. On the other, you have a desperate corporate mandate to sell plastic action figures and "build a universe." For about an hour, the Yakuza thriller is winning, and it’s actually pretty decent. But then the "G.I. Joe" of it all starts to leak in, and the whole thing dissolves into the kind of CGI slurry we’ve seen a thousand times before.

A Tale of Two Brothers (and Too Much Talking)

The film centers on Henry Golding as the titular loner. Now, Golding is a charming guy—he was the perfect romantic lead in Crazy Rich Asians—but casting him as the man who eventually becomes a silent, masked assassin is a choice that never quite clicks. The biggest irony of this "origin" is that for a character famous for never speaking, Henry Golding spends the entire movie being the most talkative person in the room. He’s earnest and physical, but the script gives him a character motivation that makes him feel less like a hero and more like a guy who’s just really bad at making friends.

The real heart of the movie, and the reason I didn’t just join my snoring neighbor in dreamland, is Andrew Koji. Playing Tommy (the future Storm Shadow), Koji brings the same brooding, electric intensity he has in the show Warrior. He’s the heir to the Arashikage clan, a secret ninja society that apparently lives in a sprawling, gorgeous compound in Japan that looks like a high-end spa with more katanas. The chemistry between Golding and Koji is the best thing about the film; you actually believe their burgeoning brotherhood, which makes the inevitable betrayal sting a little more.

Blades, Bikes, and Blurry Vision

Since this is an action movie directed by Robert Schwentke (who gave us the fun-enough RED and the less-fun R.I.P.D.), the choreography is the main event. There’s a sequence involving a car carrier truck and a bunch of motorcycles that should have been an all-time great. You’ve got ninjas jumping between moving vehicles, swords clashing against a backdrop of neon-lit highways—it’s the stuff 10-year-old me used to dream about.

However, the film falls victim to the "shaky-cam" plague that still haunts contemporary action cinema. The editing feels like someone threw a perfectly good martial arts movie into a blender on the 'pulse' setting. When you have Iko Uwais (the legend from The Raid) and Andrew Koji on your cast list, you should be letting the camera linger on their movements. Instead, we get a lot of frantic cuts and close-ups of elbows. It’s a shame because you can tell the stunt team put in the work, but the visual style prioritizes "chaos" over "clarity," which is a cardinal sin in a genre that thrives on seeing the skill of the performers.

The Franchise Curse

As the movie nears the finish line, it stops trying to be a ninja movie and remembers it’s a prequel to a toy line. This is where we get the introductions of Scarlett (Samara Weaving) and The Baroness (Úrsula Corberó). I love both of these actresses—Weaving was a blast in Ready or Not—but here they feel like they’ve wandered in from a completely different, much more cartoonish movie. They show up to drop some exposition, fire a few high-tech guns, and remind us that a "Joe" vs. "Cobra" war is happening somewhere off-screen.

It’s a classic case of franchise fatigue. In this era of cinema, we’re rarely allowed to just have a standalone story. Everything has to be a "beginning," a "chapter," or a "setup." By the time the third act introduces a magical glowing jewel and some giant CGI snakes (yes, really), the grounded stakes of the first hour are long gone. The climax looks like a Power Rangers episode that accidentally wandered onto the set of John Wick. It’s a tonal whiplash that I don’t think the film ever recovers from.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins isn't a total disaster; it’s just a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be. It’s caught between being a serious martial arts drama and a colorful superhero flick, and it ends up failing at both. If you’re a die-hard Andrew Koji fan or just really need to see a high-budget ninja fight while you fold laundry, it’s a harmless enough diversion. But as a revitalization of a franchise, it’s a silent swing and a miss. It’s a movie that tries to give a legendary warrior a beginning, but mostly makes me wish they’d just let him keep his mask on and his mouth shut.