FILE // GIJOE-2009-ROC CLASSIFICATION: DECLASSIFIED
When all else fails, they don’t.
Stephen Sommers’ The Rise of Cobra is where the live-action G.I. Joe began: a glossy, gadget-stuffed franchise launcher of accelerator suits and nanomite warheads, the Eiffel Tower coming apart over Paris and an assault on a base beneath the Arctic ice. Critics savaged it and Paramount hid it from them, but audiences turned out and the film cleared 300 million dollars. This is the deepest record of it anywhere.
One of the widest critic-versus-crowd gaps of its summer: a 33 percent Tomatometer and a 32 on Metacritic against a B-plus CinemaScore and a 302.5 million dollar haul. Paramount saw it coming and declined to screen the film for critics at all.
The movie is preoccupied with providing incomprehensible wall-to-wall computer-generated special effects. There is never any clear sense in the action of where anything is in relation to anything else.
Almost willfully stupid, but the trick with Stephen Sommers is not to take him too seriously. The propensity to overload a film with substandard visual effects is here, but so is a certain B-movie exuberance.
Plays more like a highlight reel from an established franchise than a movie intended to launch it, interrupting its barrage of CGI action for only the barest minimum of anything resembling character development.
The latest action franchise seemingly designed to further spread the incidence of ADD among youth the world over. It plays like a sequel to a film that was never made.
A plot at once elemental and incomprehensible. The movie throws so much at the screen that almost none of it registers.
The nanomites eating the Eiffel Tower look like leftover slime from Ghostbusters. Loud, dumb and proud of it.
Silly, overstuffed and utterly incoherent, yet it moves so fast and hits so hard that it is oddly difficult to hate. A guilty two hours.
For all the critical bile, opening-night crowds handed it a B-plus CinemaScore, and it cleared 300 million dollars worldwide, one of the widest critic-versus-crowd gaps of the summer.
On a 175 million dollar budget, The Rise of Cobra opened at number one with 54.7 million dollars, finished with 150.2 million domestically and 302.5 million worldwide, and was profitable enough to greenlight a sequel. Home video sealed it: the DVD debuted at number one with roughly 41 million dollars in its first week, turning a thin theatrical result into a clear win for Paramount and Hasbro.
When MARS founder James McCullen unleashes warheads packed with flesh-devouring nanomites, soldiers Duke and Ripcord are pulled into the Joes to recover them. Rescued from a Cobra ambush led by the Baroness, whom Duke recognises as his ex-fiancee Ana Lewis, the pair are inducted at the Pit, the unit’s base beneath the Egyptian desert.
The trail runs through the masked Doctor and the Arashikage ninja Storm Shadow to a plot to hold the world’s capitals hostage. From a chase through Paris in powered accelerator suits, ending with the Eiffel Tower devoured by nanomites, to a battle beneath the Arctic ice, the film races to its real subject: the birth of Cobra itself, as McCullen becomes Destro and a disfigured scientist named Rex Lewis rises as Cobra Commander.
“Our president has put us in a position internationally where it would be very difficult to release a movie called G.I. Joe.” Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer, on rebranding the team as an international force
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The beats the film is built on, walked in order. Click any still to enlarge; slots are built to take scene clips as they clear. Everything past the mid-point is spoiler-flagged in classified red.
In 1641 the Scottish arms dealer James McCullen is caught selling weapons to both the French crown and its enemies. A red-hot iron mask is welded onto his face and his bloodline is condemned to wear it, branding the family Destro. Centuries later his descendant runs MARS Industries.
A curse forged in iron, four centuries in the making.
When MARS sells four nanomite warheads to NATO, soldiers Duke and Ripcord are assigned to escort them, only for the convoy to be ambushed by Cobra forces led by the Baroness, whom Duke recognizes as his ex-fiancee Ana Lewis. The Joes intervene and pull the pair out.
The heist that drags two soldiers into a secret war.
Rescued by the Joes, Duke and Ripcord are inducted into the team at the Pit, the unit’s base beneath the Egyptian desert. General Hawk, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Heavy Duty and Breaker introduce the recruits to accelerator suits and the scope of the Cobra threat.
An elite task force, hidden under the sand.
The film’s signature sequence sends Duke and Ripcord through Paris in Delta-Six accelerator suits, powered exoskeletons that smash through traffic and leap over obstacles while chasing a nanomite warhead. It ends with the weapon devouring the Eiffel Tower, the trailer-defining image that sold the film.
A car chase where one guy is not even in a car.
The wordless commando Snake Eyes and the white-clad Arashikage Storm Shadow renew a lifelong rivalry across the film, a blood feud that predates both G.I. Joe and Cobra. Ray Park plays Snake Eyes as a silent ninja after Larry Hama vetoed a scene of him speaking.
Two ninjas, one grudge older than the war.
The film’s real subject is the rise of Cobra itself. The masked Doctor is revealed as Rex Lewis, the Baroness’s presumed-dead brother, disfigured and remade. He completes his own transformation into Cobra Commander as McCullen becomes Destro.
A scientist remade into the hooded snake.
The climax is a full assault on Destro’s MARS base beneath the polar ice, the Joes striking by submarine and Ice Sabre while Cobra launches its remaining warheads at world capitals. The base collapses as Duke and the Joes turn the last warhead back on its makers.
A fortress under the ice, and the war’s first victory.
With McCullen captured as Destro and Rex unmasked as Cobra Commander, the film closes on its sequel hook: Zartan, altered by nanomites, has quietly replaced the President of the United States, leaving Cobra one step ahead as the credits roll.
The war is not over. Cobra is already inside the house.
Six years from a Hasbro phone call to release, through a revolving door of screenwriters, a leaked draft, and a late course-correction that brought in Larry Hama to pull the film back toward the comics. Scroll the timeline.
The most contentious call was recasting G.I. Joe from an American unit into a Brussels-based multinational force, a direct response to the era’s geopolitics. Fans revolted, and Hasbro publicly reassured them it was not changing the brand, insisting the name still stood for bravery and heroism and that the film was a modern telling of G.I. Joe versus Cobra, run out of the Pit just as in the 1980s comics.
Contrary to a common assumption, Industrial Light and Magic did not lead the effects. Six houses split the work, with Digital Domain in front on roughly 320 shots including the Paris chase, the opening convoy ambush and the Eiffel Tower collapse.
The tower destruction needed custom software to simulate crumbling metal. The digital tower was rebuilt from the original plans and grew so complex it could not fit in a single computer file, with the green nanomites and debris driven by a particle system.
The Moving Picture Company handled the underwater climax, building a full 3D polar base, ships and attack subs across some 176 shots, the fictional MARS fortress collapsing beneath the ice as the Joes strike.
Because so much of the hardware was invented, US military cooperation was limited. The Army supplied an AH-64 Apache for the opening ambush, and the production filmed MRAP armored vehicles at Fort Irwin after the Pentagon, prioritising them for combat, first turned the request down.
Six visual-effects houses split the film, with Digital Domain leading on roughly 320 shots and The Moving Picture Company on the underwater finale. Shot on a 175 million dollar budget at a Downey soundstage and Prague’s Barrandov Studios, with second-unit work in Paris, Egypt, Tokyo and the Arctic. Because so much of the hardware was fictional, US military cooperation was limited to real steel like an AH-64 Apache and MRAP vehicles at Fort Irwin.
Stephen Sommers reunited with composer Alan Silvestri, who scored the film with a ninety-piece Hollywood Studio Symphony recorded at the Newman and Barbra Streisand scoring stages. Varese Sarabande released the soundtrack on August 4, 2009, twenty-one tracks running over seventy minutes, anchored by the seven-minute centerpiece Delivering the Warheads. Reviewers found the synth-heavy first half thin but praised the orchestral surge of the second, from Who Are You onward, where Silvestri leans into full brass and the King Cobra theme.
Original score by Alan Silvestri, the full Score From The Motion Picture album via the official YouTube album playlist.
Official Paramount Pictures trailer via YouTube. Embedded with youtube-nocookie for viewer privacy.
Hasbro scanned the actors for a 3.75-inch figure line that launched in July 2009, including the first ever Pit playset in franchise history, and dropped more than three hundred parachute-rigged G.I. Joe figures from the roof of a forty-two-story Kansas City hotel at the annual fan convention.
Black helicopters marked G.I. Joe buzzed American beaches, tie-ins ran with Burger King, 7-Eleven and Norton, and a two-part viral short, The Invasion of Cobra Island, spoofed Thunderbirds with vintage Hasbro vehicles and custom puppetry.
To keep a lid on it, the film shot under the fake working title Dark Sky: First Strike. The signature marketing image stayed constant throughout: the accelerator suits tearing through Paris as the Eiffel Tower comes apart.
Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore framed the no-early-screenings call as strategy, citing the critic-versus-audience gulf on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and saying the studio wanted audiences, not reviewers, to define the film. The term critic-proof followed it into release.
There is no true post-credits scene, but the film closes on a tag before the end titles: the captured James McCullen, now Destro, is visited in his cell by the Doctor, revealed as Cobra Commander, who hisses that he will need a codename. It sets up the leadership of Cobra going forward.
The bigger hook lands just before that: Zartan, altered by nanomites, has replaced the President of the United States, leaving Cobra secretly in control of the White House as the credits roll. It is the thread Retaliation would pick up four years later.
The mixed reception drove a hard reset. Jon M. Chu’s 2013 Retaliation killed Duke off early, recast Cobra Commander and sidelined Destro, keeping only Ray Park’s Snake Eyes and Byung-hun Lee’s Storm Shadow, while paying off the Zartan-as-President hook planted here.
Follow the file into the rest of gijoe.army: the toy catalogue, the character encyclopedia, and every G.I. Joe film.
Explore the Movie Toys The Rise of Cobra tie-in line from Hasbro: the accelerator suits, the ninjas, the Night Raven and the first ever Pit playset, catalogued on the site. Open → 
Rise of Cobra Characters Full file cards for Duke, Snake Eyes, the Baroness, Destro, Cobra Commander and the rest of the roster. Open → 
The G.I. Joe Films Walk every G.I. Joe movie, from the 1987 animated feature through Retaliation and Snake Eyes, on the movies hub. Open → Official stills grouped by chapter. Open a section, then click any frame to view it full screen.
Not a true one, but the film ends on a tag before the end titles: the imprisoned Destro is visited by the Doctor, revealed as Cobra Commander, who hisses that he will need a codename. Just before it, Zartan is shown having replaced the President of the United States, the film’s real sequel hook.
About one hour and fifty-eight minutes, rated PG-13 for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout.
Stephen Sommers directed. Channing Tatum leads as Duke, with Marlon Wayans as Ripcord, Rachel Nichols as Scarlett, Ray Park as Snake Eyes and Dennis Quaid as General Hawk. Cobra is led by Christopher Eccleston as Destro, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander, Sienna Miller as the Baroness and Byung-hun Lee as Storm Shadow.
The Delta-Six accelerator suits are powered exoskeletons the Joes wear in the Paris chase, carrying heat-seeking rockets and a caseless Gatling gun. The nanomite warheads are MARS-built weapons packed with microscopic robots that devour any non-organic matter and can consume a city in minutes.
The Rise of Cobra holds a 33 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and a 32 on Metacritic, with critics hammering the writing, incoherent action and uneven CGI. Opening-night crowds gave it a B-plus CinemaScore, and it cleared 302.5 million dollars worldwide against a 175 million budget, one of the widest critic-versus-crowd gaps of the summer.
Alan Silvestri, reuniting with Stephen Sommers after The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing, with a 90-piece Hollywood Studio Symphony. The 21-track album was released on Varese Sarabande on August 4, 2009, anchored by the seven-minute Delivering the Warheads and the King Cobra theme.
It is the first live-action G.I. Joe film ever made and film one of the series. Jon M. Chu’s Retaliation (2013) is the direct sequel; the 2021 Snake Eyes reboot restarted the continuity entirely. This film sets up Zartan replacing the President, a thread Retaliation pays off.
Yes. In the film the acronym stands for the Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, a Brussels-based multinational task force, a change producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura tied to the era’s geopolitics. Fans revolted, and Hasbro publicly reassured them the brand still stood for bravery and heroism and remained G.I. Joe versus Cobra, run from the Pit.
Streams on Paramount+, or own it on 4K UHD.
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