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Here's my "review", as it were:

A note though, I know nothing about GI Joe (or action figures in general), so I have no clue how it stands up to that or any storylines that were put in place beforehand.

I went to go see it Sunday. I really enjoyed myself, although I was mentally critiquing it *during* the movie. Like how at least three scenes were of the obvious greenscreen-background kind, or a few of the this-is-clearly-fake-CGI-but-I'm-going-along-with-it kind. But it was really just fun to watch and had a coherent plot that I could follow despite knowing nothing when I came in (with at least one twist at the end, no less).

Also, Destro is Scottish. smile

Someone mentioned that Destro doesn't look right, I think. There's an explanation for that. Mainly because this whole entire movie was a prequel.

For those of you who are worried that Christopher Eccleston doesn't have a good character, I thought he had a pretty convincing performance as well as a lot of screentime. He's also the second name in the credits. (Unlike The Dark Is Rising in which he had neither but I blame the scriptwriters for that. Redeeming factor for that being that there's easily a huge Doctor Who-unintentional-reference scene that would only be funny for that reason.
Although a good number of his scenes have more of a corporate business feel to them, but that's kind of the point.

Jonathan Pryce as the President -- the only reason I point this out is that this marks the third occasion to date -that I know of- where Eccleston is in a movie/show with someone who played the Master (albeit this one being from Curse of Fatal Death).

Overall, very effects-heavy like I figured it would be, and 90% of the movie is action sequences, (the rest is exposition or backstory) but it rose above my expectations and is worth watching -- even if you're just going because Eccleston is in it, which was my reason.

AND it sets itself up very well for a sequel, both with the main and secondary sub-stories.

Well in terms of plot, like I said, there isn't too much.

It's all BANG KAPOW action sequences. And Scottish Destro. And the ninjas.

And you won't be totally disappointed about the mask thing. It starts out referring to it, even.

The trailer looked great to me due to Eccleston being in it, so... rolleyes

Finally got around to seeing this (was actually planning to watch Ponyo, but we missed the start by ~15 min and didn't want to wait 2 hours for the next showing). I could see this wasn't going to be anything like the cartoon when those helicopters got shot out of the sky and nobody parachuted out. But, damn, the death count in this film must have been pretty damn high. I wonder how many civvies got plastered on the streets of Paris during that car chase sequence.

Overall, I guess I liked it, though it kind of got bogged down towards the end, and I had a hard time figuring out who was shooting at who during the underwater sequence. Some really nice visuals, though, like when the Baroness shoots at Duke on the rooftop and the glass starts shattering everywhere.

The backstory for Duke, the Baroness, and the crazy scientist dude was completely changed from the cartoon, but as it's own separate continuity I guess it works okay. I think I preferred the cartoon origin for the scientist guy, even if I hated how it played out in the animated movie (Cobra-la-la-la... rolleyes ). Stormshadow was cool. Snake-eyes was mostly cool, though I didn't like how you could see his mouth on the mask. Didn't like their childhood flashbacks, though, because it felt a bit cheesy. Ripcord was just barely tolerable as the comic relief sidekick. The guy playing General Hawk was awful.

Eccleston was pretty good as Destro. I liked his performance. Though that line he had about 'I've finally taken my place in the clan McCullen' (or whatever) near the end was totally lame. I think I preferred the Commander's voice before he put the helmet on and started sounding like Destro from the cartoon. Hope in the sequel he just wears a cowl or something and uses his helmet-less voice.

Eccleston isn't the kind of actor to stick around for sequels/continuations, though.

Either his characters get killed off, generally get a bad ending, or the project is so bad to begin with that sequel plans are scrapped.

For instance, I watched 28 Days Later for the first time today....