Another DVD-over-movie-theater bonus is that when I'm watching a movie like GI Joe with Jeremy, we can pause the movie while we wipe away tears of laughter at all the unintentionally funny parts, or point out the ridiculous plot points, or take a moment to predict what happens next. It's great fun. And GI Joe is the best bad movie I've seen since Van Helsing back in 2004.
Let me explain what I mean.
GI Joe is the kind of movie where as each successive actor appears on the screen, you realize more and more what you're getting into. Last night, we noticed Channing Tatum first and although I didn't know who he was, I did immediately realize that he is the worst actor ever. Somehow, he managed to deliver lines like "They killed all my friends. We lost a lot of good men out there and I want to get revenge," in a total deadpan. Then we saw an actor with the last name of Wayans, and that was another "oooooohhh" moment of realization. Then we saw Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, and finally Brendan Fraser (for about 15 bizarre seconds), and at that point it was pretty much all we needed to know.
GI Joe is the kind of movie where the bad guys are not German, not Chinese, and not Arab, but SCOTTISH.
It's the kind of movie where, in the frantic race to stop the bad guys from doing something terrible to an inanimate national landmark, dozens of innocent bystanders are killed (see also: Speed 2).
It's the kind of movie where all the women characters, even when engaged in deadly, hand-to-hand combat requiring the concentrated use of all one's faculties, wear their hair down. We've all seen this before, and it drives me crazy. Women in real life don't even wear their hair down when they're dancing ballet, much less when they are engaging in high-tech warfare. Trust me - I used to have long hair. I know these things. Also in this movie, the only female on the good guys' team goes jogging on a treadmill in a room full of men wearing a sports bra as a top, with her hair down. SO unrealistic.
GI Joe is the kind of movie where the plot can hinge on a jet pilot knowing the Celtic word for "fire!" at a moment's notice, and it's not at all ridiculous to the characters in the movie. Jeremy and I, however, were practically rolling on the floor with laughter at that scene (and in a later scene when he needed to know "eject" in the same language).
Finally, and perhaps most tragically, GI Joe is the kind of movie that would take a sensitive, nuanced, adorable actor like Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and cram him into the role of a deranged villain doctor. I wept for him when I saw what they had done to him. I really did.
All this makes it sound like I had a terrible time watching this movie. Actually, I loved the experience. It was so much fun to watch with Jeremy and just enjoy the train wreck in good company. It may not have been a very good movie, but like I said, it's the best bad movie I've seen in years.