Snake Eyes – A Cinematic Snake Eyes

The world of G.I. Joe and its subsequent film universe are as big and comically over-the-top as the animated series and toys in which it is based. Hoping to expand upon that world and create a new franchise and more financial opportunities beyond it, Snake Eyes is a spin-off centered around the character of Snake Eyes. As far as its franchise potential is concerned, that point is obviously too early to tell but fans of G.I. Joe are sure to find enough to enjoy here. As far as everyone else is concerned, this film is sure to be a challenge to watch though not in a good way. Lacking any imagination whatsoever, the film is too long and a dull tonal mess tied together by derivative origin story tropes that is ultimately sunk by bad editing and an unintentionally hilarious script that often made the film entertaining for the wrong reasons. While the pieces are definitely there and the film had its moments, they can’t quite stay above water.

As mentioned, Snake Eyes is an origin story for the titular character (Golding) that saw a loner with a troubled past find himself thrust into an ancient Japanese clan called the Arashikage after saving the life of a man named Tommy (Koji) they heir to the clan. From there, Snake Eyes would learn the ways of the Arashikage and in turn found something that he had been longing for, a home and a purpose. But that situation was clearly not going to last forever as when Snake Eyes’ past came to the surface, he and his relationships with the people around him would be put to the test. The problem with that was that the film provided little reason to care about any of it. Offering little in the way of development, characters were merely quickly whisked along a contrived path which tried to force far too much. This made for some awkward moments tonally as all the origin story tropes were checked one by one in a painfully predictable way since the film’s only concern was clearly looking towards creating a potential franchise above all else and it is certainly trying.

As the purpose of the film is to get Snake Eyes wherever pre-determined point the filmmakers want him to go, the journey from point A to point B essentially doesn’t matter and this journey was treated as such. That being said, Snake Eyes wasn’t without its moments though not all of them were good. At its best, the film stayed in that generic lane but whenever it tried to be anything more than that, it faltered. Not that this genre has ever been accused of being overly-serious, there were times when the film was guilty of going too far in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, this is an action film so there was definitely action here if it could be called that. Good luck to anyone attempting to keep up with it as the bad editing and camerawork will make it next to impossible. Behind the surplus of cuts, there were some flashes of what the action could have been if handled better which was just sad. However, the backdrop for those badly-shot action sequences was decent to look at.

In the end, the best part of Snake Eyes was its performances by default in spite of the horrendous script whose unintentionally hilarious dialog didn’t do the actors any favors. Golding as the titular character was serviceable brings enough charisma and screen presence but that can only go so far with a vanilla character. Though he was more than capable with the action requirements of the role, he couldn’t quite deliver the emotional depth needed to sell the rest of the role not that there was a lot there to begin with. At least making an impression was Koji as Tommy who stole countless scenes with personality alone (though he didn’t have much competition in that regard). Abe was also strong as Akiko, a character which the film never seemed to figure out what to do with.

Overall, Snake Eyes is the film equivalent of a snake eyes but as long as its target audience continues to buy in, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks anyway.

still courtesy of Paramount Pictures

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.