I recently read an interview with G.I. Joe director Stephen Sommers in which he said that this movie would probably the closest he would get to fulfilling his dream of making a James Bond film. To which I can’t help but think… what? Sure, there’s a baddie bent on world destruction and a whole lot of snazzy technology on display. But up until Quantum of Solace anyway, the Bond series was distinguished by a certain amount of wit, and a charismatic hero whose roguish nature and appetite for danger helped him to bring down dozens of villains. Where can you find anything like that in the G.I. Joe trailer? In the ragtag band of buffed-up B-listers who play the titular team? In the wholesale destruction of the Paris skyline’s most recognizable landmark (the 007 adventures use their locations as settings, not simply monuments to be toppled)? One could argue that the brute-force efficiency of the G.I. Joe team is the American equivalent of British sophistication, but if that’s the case, we got the fuzzy end of the lollipop, cinematically speaking. Then again, this is the guy who legitimately thought that Van Helsing was a tribute to classic monster movies, so what the hell does he know?