Two years ago, there wasn’t much to be said about a film that was only based off of a toy line. Then a dude named Michael Bay came along and changed all that, making over a zillion dollars with two films about robots that change into other things. The movies weren’t exactly rich with story or character development, but they did the source material justice, which is all most fans wanted. One would think that a movie about a secret squad of soldiers would be more believable, but sadly, this wasn’t the case.

There is more than enough source material to play with, given the G.I. Joe toys, comics, and many incarnations of the TV show and Director Stephen Sommers’ other projects including Van Helsing and The Mummy have a decent story and are both relatively entertaining. For this film, however, it felt like Sommers left the passion and creativity he had for his previous films at home when reporting to the set of Joe — which is pretty evident in the first five minutes of the film.

It’s easy to pick on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra for its poor dialogue or predictable story because when you force lines like “he’s a real American hero” into a scene, it warrants ridicule. When it comes to the story, it’s predictable because it is a blatant ripoff of another film, when the main villain brainwashes his victims to do his bidding, identified by a small lesion on the neck. It’s also funny how you can call this movie The Rise of . . . when the entire film is lacking in any rising action.

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Just over 24 hours before G.I. Joe hits screens nationwide, there are still plenty of rumors and whispers on how good or bad this movie will be. Critics seem to be torn as well, as RottenTomatoes gives it a 93% while Empire says the film is “Bond without the style and Team America without the bellylaughs“. Before the rest of the world gets to weigh in on the subject, it looks like director Stephen Sommers is already planning a return to the franchise.

In a recent interview with Sommers, he talked about some of his new projects coming up, including a retro-style Tarzan film, and yes, a sequel to G.I. Joe. From Super Hero Hype:

There’s a couple [projects], but mainly I’m getting very excited about doing “G.I. Joe 2.” I’m working on “Tarzan” at Warner Brothers and they’re a bunch of great people. (It will be) live action but we’ll contemporize it. It’ll still be a period movie, but it’s almost like “The Mummy,” it took place in Ancient Egypt and the ’20s and ’30s, but it felt more contemporary, that sort of deal.

Sommers continues to say that if Paramount wants it, he’d be ready to start work on G.I. Joe 2 as early as September. While we’re still clambering for details on this Joe movie, Sommers released a new concept image of Destro’s mask, and to say the least, it looks more promising than Cobra Commander’s helmet. Paramount’s G.I. Joe hits theaters this Thursday night at midnight at select theaters. Check out a bigger version of the helmet after the jump.

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In anticipation of the soon-to-be-released G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Paramount has dropped a bunch of new images from the film on us. Although we still haven’t seen much of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander, these new images do give us a better sense of the size, scale and scope of the film. To be honest, several of these images look like stills taken directly from some of the recent trailers for the film.

Still, and I’m sure I’m pretty much the only one out there who feels this way, these new pictures do make me even more excited for this movie, even if I’ve seen  some of them before. I know, you’ve seen the trailers or whatever and you think the film looks lame, corny, campy or “insert negative adjective here.” But I, on the other hand, think it looks pretty much exactly how a movie based on a line of toys should look. Don’t agree? Take a look at Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Are you going to tell me that Transformers looks serious or is a series movie? Nope. It looks exactly like its supposed to look — and so does this one. Its a movie based on a line of toys people, its not Shakespeare. Get over it and just go see the movie for what it is: a fun Summer ride where you check most of your brain at the door and go for the fun.

Don’t expect much in the way of meaning or deep substance and you won’t be disappointed. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra hits theaters August 7. Check out the larger pics after the jump.

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Over at Latino Review they’ve got a story up about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra director Stephen Sommers being locked out of the editing room and fired from the film. This story is based on an internet message board post at producer Don Murphy’s website claiming to be from an “insider” who talks about how bad the film was testing with audiences and that in an attempt to save the film, Sommers was fired and a new “fixer” editor was brought on board.

Latino Review has also updated the story recently with an interview with the film’s producer, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who denies everything and says of the story: “It’s very unfair to Steve, it’s completely untrue he was never asked to leave or been fired or any of that. That’s ridiculous. The movie tested very well.” He goes on to say that: “Everybody was happy, the studio was happy, the filmmakers were happy, the audience was happy with the movie. We had three test screenings, three different times and tested it and each time it just got better and better. We started off in a good place and we ended up in even in a better place, which is what you hope on a film from testing it.”

Whatever your personal feelings about the upcoming film, its easy to understand why the producer of it would want to immediately squash any and all rumors about a troubled production. However, and this is something people probably don’t realize, especially if they’ve never worked on a film before, most productions have problems. You can’t have that much money and that many people working together on that kind of schedule with so many balls in the air and not have problems. It’s just the nature of filmmaking. So, he may not just be trying to save face.

Although, test screenings and their results are usually an internal matter and not info studios like to have circulating, especially if the news is not so good. So sadly, if this info is actually true, this may indeed be a case of damage control and the film may be as bad as people seem to think it is. That said, I’m actually looking forward to the movie.

I had all the G.I. Joe stuff as a kid and seeing it all on the big screen will hopefully be a real treat. Of course, as with most movies coming out of Hollywood these days, it could also be a loud, explosive mess emphasizing style over substance and not be good at all. You pay your money, you take your chances. Either way, we’ll find out when the film hit theaters on August 7th.

UPDATE: Today in Variety, the trade has a story which completely refutes the entire thing and says Sommers was never fired or anything like it. So, there you go. Just another day in Hollywood.