G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Not much is known about the early days of G.I. Joe, except that in the early 1960's, Scottish philosopher Hans Brough devoted his career to investigating the character of free will, emotion, and consciousness. After being hired by American military contractor Yoyodyne Industries, to help them do just that, though Brough’s own goals were likely academic, the G.I. Joe toy and cartoon franchise was born. Although Brough’s own research was incidental to Yoyodyne’s military marketing campaign, parading colorful indestructible characters of an elite military organization in front of millions of American children under the guise of an educational program turned out to be incredibly informative for both of them. Yoyodyne later claimed responsibility for the huge increase in military recruiting in the past decade and for the paradoxical result of what was basically a brainwashing technique also leading to the firm belief that simply having information about a situation leads directly to the capacity for informed choice.
Yoyodyne, in an apparent victory lap for the success of their covert nationwide advertising program, hired surrealist director Stephen Sommers to bring the little plastic figurines of our childhood to life on the big screen. It is unknown how much involvement Brough himself had on the film, but one can still feel his ideas coming through, the important questions of his life’s work presented by the characters over and over. In nearly every scene the characters are thrust into horrifying situations to test them, and later, they are asked, “Could you have done differently?” It is the character of General Hawk, played by world-famous character actor Dennis Quaid, star of the international mega-hit Innerspace, who repeats this question. With incredible subtlety, Quaid acts as the voice of Brough himself in the film, setting up the big questions that leave the audience wondering for days- or even weeks after the end of the film. One can not help but notice the characters Quaid spends the most time with are attractive young women, possibly just one side effect of his incredible fame and talent.
The other side of the question is also fully explored by the evil organization, not yet known by the name “Cobra,” but even then using snakes as a representation of a lack of free will. It is widely accepted that reptiles are driven by pure instinct, the need for food, self-preservation, lust, and so on, leading to the nickname of the amygdala- the “reptile brain.” These are the people who have no choice, no emotion, no free will to guide them when instinct fails or, as in any civilized society, must be suppressed for the benefit of society. Thus, through the genius of one of Scotlands greatest philosophers, what Sommers is really showing us is the great conflict within each of us, the conflict between instinct and reason, between id and ego, between the higher and lower functions of the mind. Like Zartan, the master of disguise, this film masquerades as a celebration of a successful ad campaign while just beneath the surface fills our heads with thoughts that force us to question the nature of the human mind. Are the agents of Cobra driven to commit their crimes by atavistic desires that most people can easily ignore, are they in fact nothing more than empty-headed automatons running programs fed to them by animalistic forces? But we must ask the same about the Joes. Do they choose their actions or are they also only responding to stimuli? Quaid, the master thespian, provides a simplified answer in his moving speech to the Joes, though we all live our lives according to the basic rules of reality and society, we all still have a choice, we can all choose to act as conscience or rationality or faith or whatever we call it directs us. When presented with two seemingly correct options, we do have the capacity and responsibility to choose between them.
The course of the film, the secret war between Id and Ego, shows us that accepting choice and free will categorically leads to having more options, a complex array of options are open to those who accept the burden of choice, but those who reject choice and operate on instinct alone will eventually have only one possible course of action, probably a terribly unpleasant one, like being locked in a small room with Christopher Eccleston for a very long time.
Anyway, what could be a more obvious expression of free will than being captured by the French police?
Five Stars.