This summer’s Snake Eyes will surely be the make or break entry in the G.I. Joe franchise that Paramount have been trying to get off the ground for over a decade. The Rise of Cobra turned a minimal profit and was greeted tepidly by both critics and audiences, while sequel Retaliation roped in Dwayne Johnson and experienced the bump in box office takings that come with having the man known as Franchise Viagra in the lead role.
A third installment has languished in development hell ever since, but Henry Golding is stepping into the breach and looking to launch a money-spinning series of his own with Snake Eyes. The origin story for the fan favorite is coming to theaters in July, and at long last the first trailer has arrived to kick off the promotional blitz for a martial arts actioner that wrapped filming in February of last year before being delayed significantly as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, which did at least allow the cast and crew to get some last minute reshoots in the can this past March.
Nobody’s expecting greatness from Snake Eyes, but it does at least look to provide a serviceable and entertaining heightened genre film, scaling back the military and sci-fi elements that characterized G.I. Joe in the past to focus on good old fashioned hand to hand combat.
Golding is a charming and charismatic presence who appears to have put the hours in when it comes to his fight training, while Samara Weaving is a fast-rising star in her own right, with The Raid‘s Iko Uwais and Warrior‘s Andrew Koji providing Snake Eyes with its requisite dose of martial arts badassery, so the early signs are certainly promising.
