Technophilia: The Nokia N900 Review

This header makes more sense down the road, trust me ...

What up? The Nokia N900 is a Linux-powered smartphone from Finland heralded for its idiosyncratic operating system. It uses a 3.5" resistive touchscreen (800x480 pixels resolution for 16 million colors), 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics on the dual LED flash, video recorder with WVGA, a MiniUSB power/data connection, Bluetooth 2.1, full QWERTY via a slide-out keyboard and a 3.5mm jack for stereo sound.

That's a good thing, right? No cloud computing necessary, 32GB of onboard memory (expandable via 16GB MicroSD card to a total of 48GB on your hip), completely open source OS which allows a wide variety of customization options, you can remove the memory card without taking the battery out, multitasking is available. Go on, install Firefox (Fennec or Icerocket), the code's fine. It can natively view virtually any media format you can throw at it, its web browser comes pre-loaded with Flash 9.4 (you can see almost anything on the web, like a real computer), wi-fi speeds are awesome, 3G speeds are pretty good, the application MaStory offers amazing integration with all leading blogging services, there's a built in FM Radio transmitter and receiver, tethering to a MacBook Pro is a 20 second affair with T-Mobile, you can have full MS Office emulation from OpenOffice with an optional installation of Turbo Easy Debian ... there's a feature list as long as your arm and a sense of freedom you can't find in any of the market leaders.

What's the problem? It costs between $530-$650 in cash with zero carrier subsidies available, and is extraordinarily rare in retail (Nokia has stores in New York and Chicago, outside of that you'll have to rely on having it shipped to you). The actual phone usage? Not so good in less-than-optimized reception areas (no call in Pasadena, CA has ever lasted longer than 30 minutes, sometimes dropping off as quickly as fifteen). The battery usage is intense -- keeping the phone plugged into a computer while on conference calls is a must. Outside of the phone itself, there's not much that works in portrait mode, not even the virtual keyboard (so forget about one handed texting unless you're blessed with intense dexterity -- 18+?) and sometimes the performance can be a little sluggish if you're doing way too much (downloading multiple channels) at once. The web browser, which is robust, can hang a little on the likes of Google Reader and Gmail, making for some frustrating delays (could be Pasadena connectivity again).

The full story: Let's start this way: I love this freakin' phone. I will also add that this love has virtually nothing to do with talking and hearing voices -- you know, the phone part.

After being a Palm user of ten years' standing and migrating out of a Treo 680 (ah, the love, the tragedy, oh the effervescent tragedy), I had a great deal of trepidation, moving my data allegiances to another continent, another platform, another world essentially. My fears were largely unfounded. I migrated all of my contacts (more than 700) over within five minutes and resolved all the conflicts within a day. After wrestling with a Bluetooth drama on a temporary phone I used for a while, I was able to get online and tethered so quickly that it was almost easier than my homebound wi-fi. Again, I love this phone.

Let's break that down into key areas ...

• Web browsing


• Word processing & productivity


• Blogging


• PIM/data management


• Entertainment/multimedia


• Voice calls

... and that way we can be systematic. Let's go!

Web browsing

In a word: wow. Thus far, there's only one thing I've browsed to that would not work exactly the same way as it did on my MacBook Pro, and that's Hulu's actual show pages -- the front page, subscriptions, preferences and the queue all work fine. Both of my websites (this one and The Operative Network) look pretty much perfect. YouTube? Flawless, and exactly as it appears on my MacBook Pro. Even the big test, Hulu, looks great right up until you try to play an actual episode. See the browser here (and Firefox, and until I prove otherwise, Iceweasel) only work up to Flash 9.4, and the main website for video runs on Flash 10.1 (so the ads can work and pay for the joint). I've never had a mobile web browsing experience like this, and it's freaking amazing. If you want it, Firefox gives you tabbed browsing too. I can't say enough good about the online experience with this device ...

... even though sometimes, depending on connection speeds, there can be some freezing based on Java load times and what not. OTOH, I get that at home and at work too, so it's not like it's a big deal. Plus, sweet spirit, let it connect to wi-fi and watch it go! No complaints whatsoever on the web browsing, likely the best mobile browsing experience available.

Word processing and productivity

Here's where things get tricky ...

The public word is that "there's no built in word processor on the N900." Okay.

So I followed a link or two (or seven) and installed something called Turbo Easy Debian on my phone. It essentially installed a different kind of Linux package alongside the operating system I'm running. Sweet. Guess what that automatically installed. Open Office in all its glory. Full support for M$ Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint, the whole shebang. Fantastic. A little slow, and the emulation of a mouse's effect on a cursor isn't so smooth, but it's in there like Prego, baby.

Then, for kicks, I tried something. I created a new "note" using the built in software, and pasted in my weekly comics list for my reviews. I saved it on to the SD card and then plugged the thing into the nearest computer around via USB 2. An HTML file was created that I could read anywhere. Interesting.

Then I got ambitious. I decided to try and use the "open" feature in notes to crack open one of my development files on my current novel. I write stuff in either plain text or HTML (often HTML code in a plain text file) to preserve my usages of italics and what not while still keeping things fairly universal in their application (as I go web first in many instances). However, the notes application on the Treo 680 could only handle 2000 characters. I didn't think this one would be much more robust ...

WRONG!

The built in, plain jane, Notes application on the N900 can open up huge (and I mean really large) text files, copy, paste, and do whatever you need. I've been cobbling on my novel ever since. Is it Word files? No. I never used those anyway, I just wanted compatibility. It is fast, it is accurate, it is readable on every computer I come across and it is -- in a word -- awesome. Go you Finnish bastards! So for flexibility and usability, I'm gonna give a big thumbs up to this section. I am so in love.

Blogging

This one deserves its own section, due to the wonder of MaStory. Let's say you run a blog. Wordpress, Blogger, Livejournal, Drupal, doesn't matter. You enter in your data (even if your blog uses FTP access, so get it together, Google!) for your account ... and start blogging. You can edit existing blogs. You can post. You can add images. You can add video. All from a client that is downloadable from the machine and works seamlessly. I've now posted three blogs, and aside from me forgetting a break tag, I haven't had to go on a desktop at all for any of them ... including this one! If I was a full time journalist, or trying to do live entertainment reporting, this would let me scoop almost anybody. The speed and flexibility of it are alarming. Outstanding work here, especially given that it's all open source work.

PIM/data management

Ah, finally some areas where all the skies aren't blue. Contacts are fine -- you'll never go into the cloud here. I exported my entire Palm database as a vcard and saved it on to the MicroSD card. I was then able to import it all -- more than 700 contacts, again -- and resolve all the conflicts within 10 minutes of looking around.

I will note that I have just barely tested IM, which is threaded into the "conversations" tool. I didn't notice them any differently from text messages, which pop up as a window in a corner that I can click or ignore and benefited from my skillful mobile typing skills. Don't try it in traffic, as portrait mode doesn't serve messaging and the on-screen keyboard is not so wieldy. Maybe fixable in upgrades.

Now my calendar ... that I haven't figured out yet. Most of the things I learned were done by others first. The Nokia Maemo community is super supportive and very quick to communicate their success. I haven't seen any word on Palm Calendars (or maybe my Google searching skills need some sharpening) so I'm slowly re-entering everything that wasn't a birthday or anniversary (all of which came through with my contacts). Moreover, the alarms for the calendar are silent when the phone is silent, so without vibration I can miss 'em. Not so cool.

I also miss being able to assign ringtones to different contacts and not having an incoming text message sound that's distinctive (the one here is very wishy washy and doesn't get my attention at all, even with the less-than-robust vibration), but given all I get in return, I'm coming to accept that. A solid "B" in this area, as I'm making it work and not complaining on a regular basis (and Palm had some world-beating calendaring going on, so that's tough to top).

UPDATED: As mentioned in another blog, with the amazing help of Dave Smith and the gang at talk.maemo.org, I now have all my calendar and contact information regularly synchronized with my MacBook Pro via the Unofficial N900 iSync Plugin, a work of love and community that makes me so happy I could wet myself. All done without ever trusting a single bit of data to the cloud. Eat me, Android! On the laptop side, it's sad that what Palm Desktop did in one application takes probably three to do otherwise. Still, upgrade that grade for the N900 to "A-" for PIM and compatibility!

Entertainment/multimedia

Okay, top ratings here. The built in browser handles YouTube and lots of other things like a champ. Being Flash 9.4 instead of 10.1 (which people keep saying is on its way any second now) is a bit of a limitation, in that I can look at what's in my Hulu queue, but not watch the shows themselves.

The machine natively runs lots of video formats, and I've been watching movies and video files formatted for my PSP with great success (I normally use Handbrake to rip DVDs and then convert the files into mobile-friendly mp4s with PSPWare). The music player, stock, is a little weird, and doesn't have much playlist support, but we'll see what GoGadget has to say about that.

The built in FM Radio is great, because now I can listen to the New @ 2 mix for the first word on new music every day and never interrupt anybody else. It's weird, because the phone uses the plugged in 3.5mm headphones (which took some getting used to, as they can block out a lot of external sound when you use both, but are pretty good) are the antenna for the darned thing, but I'll tell ya, it's great, preset stations and all.

Voice calls

Ah, now here's a problem. I work in Pasadena, and use this as my primary phone. The reception? She's no so good.

"Cellular data not available" is something I see a lot, when the numbers on the signal indicator change from "3.5" to "3G" to "2.5." I don't know why this phone doesn't like T-Mobile service in Pasadena (I was once on a four hour conference call on my late, lamented Treo 680) but I have yet to be on any call longer than 30 minutes while in the city of Pasadena before I get kicked off. In the LA legal limits, I've had better success, talking to my pal Craig for 42 minutes (one of the longest phone conversations I've had in months, but we hadn't spoken in some time, so we took a chance to get caught up).

Being a phone is not the strong suit of this machine. However, I'm an anti-social bastard anyway, and most of my calls are either to my wife to check in during the day or to food places to order something and say "I'm on my way." Coverage matters for this, so in this area I'd have to give it "B-" rating.

Overall ...

I am absolutely gay for this phone. I would make out with it if I could. From the desktop search widget I found (that can search Google, maps or search, Wikipedia and eBay) to the blogging and productivity tools to the relaxing ability to watch movies and listen to the radio to the great contact management to the wonderful presentation of contacts and apps on four big desktops ... this phone is fantastic. I like Ovi Maps for its GPS/directional steez, but I can just as easily use Google Maps in the browser and know my way around.

It is also not for the weak of heart -- the apps installs sometimes come from crazy places or are beta software, in worse case scenarios you may be encouraged to go into the command line, hearkening to the days of DOS. If you're afraid of getting your hands dirty, suffer on an iPhone. For the brave and determined, your persistence pays off so hugely.

I'm still learning it, and getting new things (FTP, P2P, et cetera) all the time. It takes screen shots and screen casts, and stays hooked up via USB or Bluetooth to whatever computer I'm using bringing me most of my home computer experience with me everywhere I go. I've written/posted blogs on it, worked on my novel, used its flashlight function (really) ... it's amazing. The overall grade is a "A-" which can be improved upon by ...

• PORTRAIT MODE, UP AND WORKING! Let's size down that on screen keyboard and free up my hand when I need directions.


• Better playlist management on the road through the device


• More robust documentation of the community resources and solutions by Nokia -- can we get a freakin' wiki, dude?


• More ways to stop the machine if something's holding up (installs, what have you)


• Better indicators of what's happening (processing)


• A backout DVD-ROM in case you hack it into doing something too crazy

My wife has clowned me because of the apps I've installed, after my heavy "apps are traps" rants that I've done. I countered: "These are all free" -- like on my Palm, I didn't install much that needed money. Here's my favorite Maemo apps so far ...

• GRR: Google Reader application, helps immensely on downloading and starred items


• MaStory: Makes blogging through multiple services a breeze (haven't checked the Wordpress or other blogging clients)


• Touchsearch: Search Google, WebMD, Wikipedia, eBay and more from your desktop.


• Notes: Everything you need in a word processor built in to the OS. Outstanding.


• FM Radio: Combined with the recording app I found? Excellent.


• Recaller: Record the call you're making? Excellent.


• Sketch/Xournal: Actual writing and drawing? Nice!


• LiveCast Mobile: Combined with Twitter, this could be the future of live reporting.


• ForecaWeather: Having an idea of the four day forecast every time I open my phone. Outstanding.

It ain't for everybody, but it's the best thing possible for me.

Playing (Music): "All I Do Is Win" by DJ Khaled feat. Ludacris, T-Pain, Rick Ross and Snoop Dogg

A Real International Hero? Close enough ...

This blog is part review and part response to a blog from Beantown's finest, the illustrious and praiseworthy Dart Adams. Unlike a traditional review where the use of personal pronouns "I" or "we" doesn't happen, this will take largely place more as a personal narrative and essay ... largely because I'm not being paid for it.(1)

Also, fun fact, there may be a gang of spoilers in here and in the links. You've been warned.

Anyhoo, on Sunday afternoon, my wife and I braved the retail lunacy of The Bridge (what the heezy does "Cinema du lux" even mean?) to take in the 1:20 showing of G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Fair warning: I was a huge, huge G.I. Joe fan as a child, belonging to a fan organization based on the series ("Codename: Hunter Gold" -- I was on one), owning scores of figures and vehicles, possessing every single issue of the brilliant Marvel Comics series and most of the ancillary side stories (and yes, all of Order of Battle even though that stuff's all gone after a great grandmother allowed cousins to loot my stash). So if you ask me the legal name of Stalker (Lonzo Wilkinson, rank E-5) or what Joe and Cobra members had a doomed romance in an episode of the cartoon (Mainframe and Zarana in the surprisingly nuanced David Schwartz-penned "Computer Complications" in season two), I won't have any problem hooking you up, maybe even tossing off quotes from the Oktober Guard while I'm at it ("Re-education through superior firepower!").

Coincidentally, my wife couldn't tell you the difference between Snow Job and Frostbite if they were standing in front of her.

That said, I shared Brother Adams trepidations about the film's red flags. I hadn't seen Cobra Commander(2) at all, and he was played by that weird kid from Third Rock From The Sun for spirit's sake. Most concerning of all, there was a Wayans in it. After the Skids and Mudflap atrocity from Michael Bay(3), Hasbro was on thin ice in my brain anyway. Traditional critics were not allowed to pre-screen the film (although "fan" media was -- Latino Review and Ain't It Cool News were pleased about the film pre-release, but there's no telling if they were getting lapdances while the screening was happening), which normally is a bad sign. All admitted concerns, which was why I was at a matinee (which hurts a little less if things go wrong).

I was worried for no reason. Stephen Sommers is a really, really good director and the script takes lots of potentially dumb things about Cobra and G.I. Joe and makes them smarter and more effective for a twenty-first century context. With a story that was global in scale, special effects that were top notch(4) and fantastic action(5) this movie delivered on every possible level. It's not "Malcolm X" or even "The Dark Knight," but it's among the finest action films ever made, subtly injecting characterization and nuance in between lots and lots of blowing stuff up.

My wife was similarly pleased with what went down.

Which is not to say there aren't problems. The Baroness, Storm Shadow and Duke step out onto arctic tundra wearing no more than I'd wear on a June gloom day in Pasadena. That's dumb. Marlon Wayans has two or three sadly unavoidable cooning incidents, so I could have done with a little more soldiering from him and a little less Jar Jar-ing it up. That may have been something he writes into his contract, so, sorry. The guy who plays Duke is unavoidably wooden in his acting, seemingly a poster child for botox as he can't manage more than one facial expression. Also, Snake Eyes, despite never speaking, has molded lips on his mask. Famously dumb. I personally don't like the look for Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's character at the end -- I just didn't enjoy it aesthetically. Also, rumor has it that Brendan Fraser was not Flint, as I assumed, but Gung Ho, which ... well, he had a shirt on, so that's less a problem and more a "let's keep it under control," but I can't confirm online who the heck he was.

None of that matters. The movie was fun from start to finish, and has no fewer than eight "holy sh**" moments. For fans, there's a good number of call backs to things they knew while acknowledging that this is a complete and unapologetic reboot. Fantastic stuff.

Here, I need to step into Brother Adams' analysis for dissection. Before I start, he did less of a review of the movie as a retelling of it with snarky comments, like a mean-spirited book report. Not my standard for journalism, but whatever, I'm doing it the easy way too now. Here goes ...

Considering how deep the back story of the G.I. Joe & Cobra teams is it would only make sense to start at the beginning. That would mean to start with the initial first couple of generations of the G.I. Joe/Cobra toy run, Marvel comic book storyline or the cartoon's first season. Nah, f*** all that! Let's just make something up that'll completely piss off the only people that even cared to see it at first. The fans of the original source material.

This is what is commonly called "fan myopia," and it saddens me to no end. This movie was never intended as a period piece. You wouldn't see a character named "Dialtone" since millions of people don't know what that is. The idea of a gun-toting team of Americans going in to shoot up the place is offensive in lots and lots of markets. Using the cartoon or the comic would mean starting many of the characters -- Hawk, Snake-Eyes and so on -- in Vietnam. Fine for a period piece, but running around in a VAMP jeep when you can see a Hummer roll by in traffic would be lame. I say that as a man who owned two VAMPs and loved their clean lines and easy figure loading. Spirit forbid you try to field a Sky Striker or a Cobra Rattler after people have seen modern air combat.

Moreover, this movie isn't about selling to the people who watched the cartoon nor the readers of the Marvel comic. This is a mass market movie. It shares DNA with those properties, but as much as the cartoon and comic book ignored each other, this launch into yet another media strikes its own ground. Why wasn't Brother Adams taking Devil's Due to task for their "reboot" of the comics? How about IDW's version? The European ones, with Big Ben? G.I. Joe Extreme? No criticism there? There's a reason for that -- franchises can live in multiple forms. It'd be like blaming Beast Wars for Skids and Mudflap. Moreover, this movie wasn't produced out of a sense of love for some nostalgic property, it was made to sell DVDs and toys and product. It's a business. So sure, products were placed (Cisco got crazy love).

So that argument is essentially denied. Next up ...

The story starts out with a ridiculous sequence involving the ancient Destro in France, in arms dealer named McCullen that was caught dealing arms to both sides in a battle.

For such a fan of the source material, he must have forgotten that Clan McCullen has been arms merchants for centuries. Larry Hama's comic work as much as said so after the introduction of the Iron Grenadiers and Cobra's combat at Castle Destro (which was a bit before the Cobra Civil War, IIRC). So calling that "ridiculous" seems a bit like flamebait off the bat for me, as it gives no reasons as to why it's "ridiculous." Brother Adams criticized the accents (maybe they have more linguistic experts in Boston than they do in Los Angeles, but I can walk around my office in Pasadena and find people with accents like virtually everybody in the movie, as we've got a surprisingly diverse staff). Moreover, this is not the comic, cartoon or anything else that's gone before since Snake Eyes isn't a Vietnam vet -- reboots change the rules, ask JJ Abrams with Star Trek. Argument denied..

I will admit that nanotechnology is becoming a bit of a cliche, which Brother Adams noted. No beef there, I can allow that ... sort of. Y'see, all the way back to Audie Murphy, I'd say that "super talented US soldiers who kick butt and save the day" are a cliche as well, so that's kind of a "pick your battle" thing there. I won't so much argue that one as say that I'd consider that like "how dare those cops in this movie use guns! That's so overdone!"

Count how long you usually go without meaningful dialogue as loud noises and explosions accompanied by pounding music happens in films like this (red flag #5).

Given how well Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow's relationship is fleshed out, how thoroughly the Baroness' origin is done and how many threads are woven together to create the plots Kansas City Shuffle(6) I'm not sure what kind of "meaningful dialogue" he wants here. Should Destro have talked about how his father raised him around guns and steeped in the lore of his Scottish warmongering clan? Maybe Duke should have discussed his heroism on high school football fields? No, he probably wanted Snake Eyes to have a dissertation on the global economic crisis. While taking such a scenic route could be fun, I'm sure, I believe that just enough was done here to get the plot where it needed to go. I've been criticized as a "plot first" writer many times, but I have a good idea about most of the characters here (I will allow that I don't know Zartan's or Heavy Duty's story at all, but I got some for Breaker, Scarlett, Rip Cord, Destro, the Commander, Baroness, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow and Hawk ... not bad, and I could probably reference scenes and maybe dialogue on each for as long as they stay in my short-term memory). Argument denied.

Duke also recognized his leather clad female attacker as "Ana" (red flag #6). What is this "High School Musical" bullsh**? Duke doesn't know Baroness! His chick is Scarlet ... What's going on here?

What's going on, my dear brother, is that you're unfortunately placing your own prejudices (which are themselves sadly under informed) on a work that doesn't need them. Scarlett and Duke are an item? Really? Hh, so I should ignore all those comic books where Snakes and Scarlett lived together in the mountains, when they dated, or times when she declared her love for him, in not just the Marvel series, but implied in IDW and Devil's Due runs also? Oh, sorry, you must have only caught the cartoon after you got home. Or never Googled it. Or not bothered to pick up a trade paperback. Or forgotten, once again, this is a freakin' reboot. You (nor I) own the characters, we don't decide what's canonical. So arguing what you (or I) "know" about the characters and their pasts doesn't matter, since this is a whole new canvas to work with. Scarlett likes Snake Eyes here, which happens to coincidentally be like the comics. Nothing we "knew" has to happen -- you didn't see a HISS tank roll out, did you? Just saying ... oh, argument denied.

Baroness is supposed to be Destro's chick. She isn't.

The Baroness is a spy. She kisses and manipulates whoever she needs using whatever she has to. Oh, also, she totally sucked face with Destro before Duke headbutted him in the arctic base. Also, mind controlled, as shown near the end. Moreover "supposed to be" dies in a reboot, or Spock wouldn't have sucked face with Uhura. Argument denied.

Destro doesn't rock a mask.

That's not really true, given the last scenes in the submarine. Argument denied.

There is no Cobra Commander.

That's not really true, given the last scenes in the submarine. Argument denied. Did you see the whole movie?

Wait, this is supposed to be the ORIGIN of Cobra and G.I. Joe as we know it now?

No, it's supposed to be the origin of Cobra (it's not "The Rise of G.I. Joe"), and certainly not "as we know it now," which was "without a movie and in no fewer than four incarnations drawn by people." Argument denied.

Brother Adams had an unspecified problem with Quaid's performance, who (IMNSHO) was partially channeling Scott in Patton and mostly sticking with an old soldier shtick that -- again -- may not be new but did what was needed. Argument denied, but not aggressively.

Duke is the straight man, an all American hero type. Ripcord is the wise crackin', cocky Black guy that's his best friend who provides the comic relief. Dean Martin sings, Jerry Lewis tells the jokes, Sammy Davis Jr. dances and sings but Dean always gets the girl...that dynamic changes with Obama in office, though.

Here we almost agree. The Duke actor was, to be kind, boring. Good in action scenes, bad in anything involving being human. Maybe he coulda starred as a Terminator. Nonetheless, I won't fight this point, just so you know I'm not all about tearing him down. Just most of his review.

Brother Adams commented on the Neo-Vipers, who were not supposed to feel fear or pain. They went "ow" a few times when they got shot. I'll allow that one, even though that could be surprise or an involuntary response.

We get to see a cameo from Cover Girl and Brendan Fraser gets about two minutes of screen time as Gung Ho (Boo!)

I'll admit I don't even remember seeing Cover Girl and if Brendan Fraser was Gung Ho, I couldn't tell. However, I don't care. No argument there, since I don't remember it.

There are some entertaining montages in which Ray Park in his guise as Snake Eyes shows off how f***in' super cool and awesome he is. It's essentially a showcase so all the little kids in the audience make a point to recognize that this is the guy whose toy you wanna buy.

Please see: "pay the rent." Plus, also, any chance to see Ray Park do something badass is worth seeing. Argument denied.

Duke & Ripcord work under the watchful eyes of team leader Heavy Duty (why couldn't he have been Roadblock?) and General Hawk.

Roadblock had an annoying rhyme pattern thing that was part Jesse Jackson and part Dolemite. Marlon had the "black embarrassment" card filled up, so they couldn't go over quota on that unless Michael Richards, Andy Dick, Charlie Sheen or Michael Bay stepped in.(7) Argument denied.

Anyway, honestly, If there was gonna be a heavy machine gunner get subbed in, I'd have preferred Rock 'n' Roll, who always fascinated me. But any of them could pop up in a sequel. Sorry, digression.

If you were Stalker instead of Ripcord you could've closed the deal with way less effort.

Duh -- Stalker was cool. But Stalker (at least the old one) wouldn't boink somebody on his own team. Too complicated. So, given that this doesn't fit current movie canon either way ("reeeeee-booooooot"), I won't fight this point at all.

About 28 minutes into the film we first see the accelerator suits, the dreaded suits generated groans from fanboys [and] fangirls alike but cheers from casual movie fans that don't give a f*** either way.

Those casual movie fans, fun fact, are also known as "where most of the money comes from." Also, fun fact, Snake Eyes did almost as much without a suit as Duke did in one. Moreover, didn't your very own site run some pieces on how military exoskeletons were in the works? Argument so powerfully denied.

Stormshadow has spent the overwhelming majority of his screen time looking like a Asian pop star. I half expect him to sit at a piano and belt out a ballad to some girl in a long flowing dress in either Korean or Japanese (red flag #9) at any moment.

Actor Byung-hun Lee can probably kick Dart Adams butt. He can probably kick my butt, he can probably kick the butts of most of my friends and most of Dart Adams' friends. He's highly trained in tae kwon do and has been in his share of Asian action movies, kicking people's butts. Sure, some of it was fight choreography, but you can't just walk into a gig like that without some skills. So, looks aside, he's the real deal. Argument denied.

... he instead hangs around with Baroness acting jealous. Doesn't Cobra have any other girls around?

Again not checking the source material? Unless you're gonna count the slightly skeevy Zarana, pretty much no.

This evil organization is a real sausage party, isn't it?

Makes me wish I could find a link to a photo of the Bush administration without my web browser getting nauseous. Most are. Would you like a cadre of Condoleeza Rices and Madeline Albrights marching across the screen and getting gunned down by Rachel Nichols? Argument denied.

Before I forget, Zartan get red flag #10 for overall suckage.

This in-depth and thorough analysis has been brought to you by Details magazine. Sarcasm aside, could you be any more vague? You're right, I didn't set sarcasm aside at all, my bad. Still, argument denied especially since Zartan's strongest note of characterization made the last scene (and sequel possibilities) so delicious.

... a sequence happens that kills everything for me. During the assault, one of the Neo Vipers walks out through fire towards Heavy Duty who sticks a grenade under the Neo Vipers neck ... the Neo Viper then panicked and made noises BEFORE he blew up. Now if Neo Vipers don't feel pain or fear (as evidenced by him first walking through fire) then why did one just exhibit fear of impending death?

Hm. Well, even if I was fearless and didn't feel pain, if I was trying to get something done in a disturbingly small amount of time (say, remove a live grenade from my armor) and it wasn't going well, I'd probably scramble and move quickly, even if I failed. I'm not so sure that was "panic" (I didn't see a facial expression) as much as haste. But this could go either way, so I'll allow this as a legitimate concern.

Then we get a flashback explaining exactly what happened that could have lead Ana (Baroness) to work with Cobra. After this flashback there's a chance that 20 minutes later you can predict how the movie might end kinda like we used to 15 minutes in to episodes of "New York Undercover."

I was gonna argue this one, but in retrospect, it's kind of true. Except for the thing with the brother, which was a shock what he did (not who he was). So in that I can see it both ways, I'll again allow it.

It's a super secret Black Ops covert action team doing a "secret mission" in public during daylight hours (?). That's sorta like a ninja rocking an Ed Hardy outfit while trying to be stealthy.

This was a bit of a concern on one season of 24. You can be covert and stealthy all you want ... until you're dealing with something that will eat an entire freaking city. There are a little over 2.1 million people in Paris who will all either die horribly or have an extraordinarily bad day if that thing had gotten loose. That's not the time to be stealthy. The stakes were too high and no conventional forces were sufficient for the threat. I was mad they weren't less covert, myself, because that crappy van was no match for a good flight of helicopters with chain guns. Then again, people say I often go too far. For this point, though, argument denied.

Why would you send the two guys the person you’re trying to stop already knows?

The same reason they're on the team: they have intel, they're motivated, and they have something to prove. Same reason Kobe Bryant got three big shots in the last playoff game of his rookie year (although, admittedly, that didn't work as well, and started my long enmity with Mssr. Bryant). Argument denied.

If Cobra is trying to go undetected and do their mission the stealthy way then why is G.I. Joe (the secret team that no one even knows exists) out in the open running through traffic in Accelerator Suits, causing accidents racking up a gang of collateral damage?

Cobra is a band of terrorists, dude. Baroness opened fire in a crowded building. Storm Shadow ran through the streets with a rocket launcher. They walked in the front door of a building and shot people to death. What possibly gave you the idea Cobra cared about being undetected? Argument denied.

Why not track Cobra then stop them when they figure out what the target is?

Because if they fired that thing (or even dropped it on the street) it could kill hundreds in minutes. There's no telling how many got whacked from that falling tower due to the small and too-covert team that did get sent. Argument denied.

Because there would be no explosions and no way to exhibit the cool ass CGI and special FX, that’s why!

Well ... okay, yes, that too. I'll allow that.

At the end of this head stratching [sic] explosion and casualty filled 13 minute sequence, Paris is kinda saved, Duke gets kidnapped and G.I. Joe is directly responsible for injuring thousands and THEY get arrested.

No, that's not right at all. Joes didn't fire the weapon. Joes didn't take down the tower. That's factually inaccurate, so argument completely denied.

Snake Eyes didn’t need an Accelerator Suit to do the improbable, he also managed to avoid arrest and slipped away as his peeps got tossed in the bing.

You mean "brig," except you don't, because that's on a ship. We hope they didn't get thrown into Microsoft's search engine. Again, Ray Park is badass. No argument there, just cool to see.

If you can watch a movie where a secret professional covert ops team that’s reputed to contain the best of the best soldiers in their respective fields that gets arrested by the local authorities in broad daylight for causing a gang of unnecessary carnage and you don’t have a problem with it then God bless you.

Should they have shot it out with the cops? They didn't exactly have ID they could flash that could stop the police, given that they were foreign nationals.

I need to cut this short and eat lunch, but it's easy to sum up. Brother Adams has some factual inaccuracies, some vague insults (the "undersea Cobra base" shtick is a wonderful tribute to Larry Hama's G.I. Joe #5 I believe, where Cobra Commander had this massive thing underwater, just chilling out) and asks for a host of characters that would have had no time to get fleshed out (given how little Heavy Duty already got, and again, they could all pop up in sequels). He does miss some verbs and has some grammar questions, but depending on how hard I spell check this, I might do the same. One correction I need to make ...

The original Cobra Commander was a scientist who undermined his own successes and micromanaged Cobra until they lost even while they had better weapons, better resources, better technologies and a head start of years of world conquest (if none of you have ever taken a History class about World War 2 or specifically Germany under Hitler then you’d never piece all that together ... even when Cobra Commander used to quote Stalin & Lenin in the cartoon).

Ah, more reliance on the cartoon, which later decided he was a member of a race of reptile people. No, my dear brother, originally "Ol' CC Rider" was a scam artist, complete megalomaniac and pyramid sales genius who was bent on revenge. But nice try. Say it with me, children: argument denied.

Brother Adams has a very negative view of the film based on the fact he either wanted them to live-action the nostalgia-soaked 1980s cartoon or have the movie be seventeen hours long (given his laundry list of characters -- Tomax and Xamot alone could carry a film, IMNSHO). I think that's plum crazy. But we each have our inch of digital real estate, and we each have our time to shine. I agreed with four and a half or five of his points, but found a problem with and presented evidence against ... lessee ... no fewer than 21 of them. You, I'm sure, will draw your own conclusions.

Enjoy your perspective either way ... and CO-BRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!(8)

FOOTNOTES

(1) = You want pro journalism? Pony up, pal. Spirit knows I can do and have done such reviews but I'm not gonna work that hard for free. Today.

(2) = I'm a "cloth hood" man myself, never going so much for the helmets. Even though there's no way that napkin could have stayed so effectively on his head in all the ignorance he did, but still ...

(3) = I won't even honor that with a link, you can Google it if you must.

(4) = Three special effects companies, if I read the credits right, worked on this.

(5) = Ray Park is amazing.

(6) = Brother Adams tweeted that "Defending 'G.I. Joe' is like trying to turn the Kansas City Royals into a winning MLB franchise....Good luck!" Therefore I'm gonna keep pounding the Kansas City Shuffle thing, as it's the smartest part of the movie and one of (IMNSHO) the best use of one of the properties' more ridiculous characters.

(7) = No, I will not let any that go. Charlie Sheen called the extraordinarily white Denise Richards the "n" word in a voice mail. Andy Dick and Michael Richards thought that same word was funny to bandy about. Michael Bay ... we talked about Skids and Mudflap. A pox on all their houses.

(8) = What? Did you really think I was on the other side? You musta forgot!