In bringing G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA to the silver screen, writer/director Stephen Sommers spent somewhere around $175 million. In writing the film’s official novelization, Max Allan Collins probably spent mere pennies in electricity for his computer, or, if he uses a typewriter, an estimated three bucks in paper.
Guess which one is more entertaining?
Whereas the movie is dumb fun, Collins’ adaptation is just fun, period, delivering the thrills without making you feel like your brain cells are being popped like so many soap bubbles.
The book actually follows the screenplay very closely, with lines of dialogue lifted verbatim, but Collins expands on those scenes with additional back-and-forth, which helps flesh out the characters’ personalities. After all, when you can’t spend 40 minutes on action scenes, you have to add somewhere else, and the extra padding is in service of the story.
That story introduces Army men Conrad “Duke” Hauser and Wallace “Ripcord” Weems to the ranks of G.I. Joe, a secret military squad of super-soldiers dedicated to quashing threats to the America way. It’s led by the gruff Col. Hawk, who invites them to join following their efforts in escorting a new kind of warhead from seller to buyer. Invented by the Destro dynasty’s MARS Industries, that weapon employs nanomite techology — microscopic bugs that can devour vehicles, people, cities, all in seconds.
Despite the military’s babysitting, the warheads are stolen by the bad guys (and girl) of Cobra Command, and the Joe team aims to get them back before they can be detonated in various international cities, allowing Cobra to rise to the top of world powers.
It’s one thing to see Sienna Miller’s cleavage onscreen, and it’s another thing to read about it. Witness: “The neckline of the body armor exposed the upper part of her swelling bosom, an exposure of flesh that arrogantly dared bullets to try for her, as if she could walk blithely invulnerable across the landscape.” That’s about as sexy as the real thing!
Like Collins’ original prequel, G.I. JOE: ABOVE & BEYOND, this novelization finds him playing fast and loose with a pop concept. No wonder he’s brought so many of Sommers’ popcorn movies to the page. If there’s one tie-in writer who can not only duplicate but surpass the action jolt of the movie itself, it’s he. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE BABY BLUE RIP-OFF by Max Allan Collins
• BLACK HATS by Patrick Culhane
• BYLINE: MICKEY SPILLANE edited by Max Allan Collins and Lynn F. Myers Jr.
• DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins
• DICK TRACY by Max Allan Collins
• DICK TRACY GOES TO WAR by Max Allan Collins
• DICK TRACY: THE SECRET FILES edited by Max Allan Collins and Martin H. Greenberg
• THE FIRST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins
• G.I. JOE: ABOVE & BEYOND by Max Allan Collins
• THE GOLIATH BONE by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
• A KILLING IN COMICS by Max Allan Collins
• THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins
• MY LOLITA COMPLEX AND OTHER TALES OF SEX AND VIOLENCE by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens
• QUARRY’S LIST by Max Allan Collins
• RED SKY IN MORNING by Patrick Culhane
• ROAD TO PARADISE by Max Allan Collins
• STRIP FOR MURDER by Max Allan Collins
• TOUGH TENDER by Max Allan Collins
• THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER by Max Allan Collins
