American soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are recruited by the mysterious G.I. Joe military organization. Their mission: work alongside good guys General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park), Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Breaker (Said Taghmaoui), to take down the evil Cobra organization and its leaders McCullen (Christopher Eccleston), The Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Baroness (Sienna Miller) and Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee).

The buzz: The plan seemed so simple: take a toy line/cartoon with exceptional name recognition and nostalgia value and turn it into a big budget summer blockbuster action movie. It worked for "Transformers," why not "Joe"? But "Cobra's" rise into theaters has been hampered by negative fan reaction to its initial trailers and rumors that director Stephen Sommers ("The Mummy," "Van Helsing") was booted from the editing room. Adding further fuel to the fire, Paramount chose not to screen the film for critics before it opened. Does that decision give the movie less credit than it deserves?

The verdict: That "G.I.

Did you know? Due to caution over protecting the film's script, Nichols auditioned for Scarlett by reading lines from "Van Helsing," and ultimately signed on to the movie without ever reading the screenplay. Fortunately for her, the role is considerably less embarrassing than the blow-up-doll shtick Megan Fox was given in "Transformers."