Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was at the second showing of the GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra opening yesterday.
I'm not going to spoil it for all of you who are lining up to see it today, but I can say that it was exactly what you might expect, including loud. However, there were some sociological aspects to it that were noteworthy, including how the fightin' women were portrayed.
Aside from the skin-tight leather lycra combat outfits (I was distracted by worrying about their pores clogging), the women were tough and mean. Of note was the girl-fight where they really wailed on each other, and how the redhead beat the black guy at target practice. [ed. note: yes, it would have been much more enlightened if the women refused to fight at all and instead negotiated their way out of the crisis, but then we wouldn't have much of a movie, would we?]
I was gratified by the ex-supermodel-turned-world-dominatrix who wore GLASSES throughout the movie. That might have been a first. I think she even kept them on for the kissing part, though possibly not. One style was the heavy black "I'm not just beautiful, I'm a nerdy intellectual" type, and one pair were disconcertingly like Sarah Palin's rimless ones, but she rocked them all.
I'm clearly going to have to get a new superhero spectacle wardrobe.
Another sub-theme that was notable for being so off-hand was the interracial flirting between the previously-mentioned redhead and black guy, complete with a kiss. It was a nice break from the usual colorline pairing. (Though there were no black women in the movie at all -- a bit of an oversight.)
Though I doubt many girls are going to see this movie, I like the fact that all those impressionable pre-teen (and older) boys are getting exposed to these new paradigms. Except for the skin-tight part, but it is Hollywood, after all.
The glasses. You're supposed to notice the glasses.
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