Toy Soldiers: Trying to see the good in the dismal G.I. Joe

A wise woman once told me that the older she got the more she tried to see the good in things rather than the easier route of criticizing everything. I have thought of that comment virtually every day since she said those words, but never more than while watching GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
The problem for me with this movie is not that it brings to life the Hasbro action figures first introduced in 1964 – that's kind of cool – but it does so with none of the freshness or originality of other similar efforts like Sin City or the humor and self-deprecation of the Superman franchise, or the passion of Iron Man. The creators bumbled a golden opportunity here to laugh at the effort itself, you know, the tongue-in-cheek stuff. There is nothing interesting about this effort and no humor to buoy the comic book dialogue. See the good.

The frequently used term “nail-biting” has never been more appropriate than to describe The Hurt Locker. Focused on a bomb squad assigned to dismantle IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Baghdad circa 2004, the gritty realism and sheer tension of this movie sucks you in, hooks you and keeps you dangling the entire time.
Based on the true experiences of journalist Mark Boal, who spent time embedded with such a unit (Explosive Ordinance Disposal or EOD), Hurt Locker is not an Iraq war statement but rather an in-depth character study of addiction to risk and danger. It's also a classic study of men in combat and under stress that could have taken place anywhere, detailing strong characters thrown together in the harshest of times, forced to deal with each other's psychotic idiosyncrasies and insecurities.