Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

After 2013's Retaliation, the live-action G.I. Joe stalled for years. The path back was a Snake Eyes solo film, first announced in May 2018 as an origin story for the franchise's breakout character. In December 2018, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura confirmed Ray Park would not return, and Robert Schwentke, of the Divergent and RED films, signed on to direct.

The script came from Evan Spiliotopoulos, with story and screenplay credit shared by the Seberg writing team of Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse. From the start it was conceived as a clean reboot with no ties to the Sommers and Chu films, a chance to restart the brand on a smaller, more grounded scale.

Golding led a deep international ensemble. Andrew Koji, of Warrior, played Tommy and his turn into Storm Shadow, taking over the role from Lee Byung-hun. Ursula Corbero, of Money Heist, played the Cobra operative the Baroness, and Samara Weaving played the G.I. Joe agent Scarlett.

The Arashikage were filled out by genuine martial-arts and screen pedigree: Iko Uwais of The Raid as the Hard Master, Peter Mensah as the Blind Master, Haruka Abe as the clan's head of security Akiko, and Takehiro Hira as the banished cousin and antagonist Kenta. Eri Ishida played the clan matriarch Sen.

Principal photography began in Vancouver in October 2019, then moved to Japan in January 2020 for roughly seven weeks, marked by a blessing ceremony and shooting at locations including Kishiwada Castle and the temple complex of Engyoji near Himeji. Filming wrapped at the end of February 2020, just before the pandemic shut productions down worldwide.

A round of reshoots followed in March 2021 ahead of the much-delayed release, the production stretched across nearly eighteen months by forces no one could control.

To ground the action, the production hired Japanese action director Kenji Tanigaki, known for the Rurouni Kenshin films, on the recommendation of John Wick's Chad Stahelski, who later pushed for Tanigaki to run second unit as well. With Iko Uwais among the cast, the film stacked its fight floor with real martial-arts talent.

The ambition was a grounded ninja and yakuza origin rather than the broad science-fiction spectacle of the earlier films. Ironically, the most common critical complaint was that frantic, close-up, over-edited camerawork buried the very choreography the film had assembled such talent to stage.

At its heart the film is an origin for the most famous rivalry in G.I. Joe. Snake Eyes and Tommy begin as blood brothers, bound by a saved life and a shared code, and the tragedy is watching that bond curdle. When Tommy is stripped of his birthright for using the forbidden jewel, he blames Snake Eyes and forsakes the clan.

By the closing scenes the lines are drawn. Akiko gives Snake Eyes his black outfit, Scarlett reveals his father was a G.I. Joe and recruits him, and the Baroness draws Tommy into Cobra, where he takes the name Storm Shadow and vows to kill the man who was once his brother.

Few films were pushed around more by COVID-19. Snake Eyes was dated for March 2020, bounced through the autumn, pulled from the schedule entirely in July 2020 as theaters closed, then re-set for October 2021 before finally being moved up to July 23, 2021.

It opened under Paramount's pandemic-era policy of a 45-day theatrical window before streaming. After the soft start, the studio cut even that short, sending the film to premium digital on August 17, less than four weeks after release, with Paramount Plus and physical media following that autumn.

Reviews were mixed and leaned negative, with a 35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 147 reviews and a 43 on Metacritic. Most critics treated it as a modest step up for a troubled franchise, carried by Golding and by Andrew Koji's Storm Shadow, but undercut by choppy, shaky-cam action and a thin story. Variety's Owen Gleiberman called it a skillful hodgepodge of ninja, wuxia and yakuza films, while The New York Times found the mayhem frantic yet forgettable.

Audiences were warmer than the press, and the Japanese setting, costumes and production design drew real praise even from negative reviews. The general-audience response, a B-minus CinemaScore, sat short of the enthusiasm a franchise relaunch needed.

The film invents a rich mythology around the Arashikage, an ancient ninja society that has guarded Japan for centuries from a white-walled castle in Tokyo, led by the matriarch Sen. Its creed is to abandon ego and strike with honor, and its most sacred charge is the Jewel of the Sun, a relic said to hold the power of the sun, gifted by a goddess to test the clan's character. The oath is absolute: protect it, never use it.

To be accepted, Snake Eyes must survive three challenges. The Hard Master's bowl of water teaches that strength is taken by humility, not force. The Blind Master's vision forces him to relive his father's murder. And the clan's three ancient anacondas, able to sense an impure heart, very nearly kill him. The same pit later swallows the traitor Kenta, and only then do the snakes judge Snake Eyes worthy.

After basing in Vancouver, the production moved to Japan, a rare access that gives the film much of its texture. The Tokyo montage stitches together Shibuya Crossing and the temples of Senso-ji and Zojo-ji, a route that is geographically impossible but cinematically vivid. Kishiwada Castle in Osaka stands in for the Arashikage estate.

The heart of the ninja training was shot at Shoshazan Engyo-ji, the thousand-year-old temple complex near Himeji that also doubled for feudal Japan in The Last Samurai. A Himeji sake brewery features as well, grounding the fantasy in real, photographable places few Western blockbusters reach.

No choice defined the film more than what it changed. In Larry Hama's Marvel comics, Snake Eyes is a white American Vietnam veteran whose face and vocal cords are destroyed in a helicopter explosion, a man of total silence immortalized in the wordless 1984 issue Silent Interlude. The Hard Master is murdered by Zartan, the tragedy that binds Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

The film keeps almost none of that. Its Snake Eyes is Asian, speaks throughout, and stays unmasked until the final scenes. His silence is gone, his disfigurement is gone, and his motive is a father's murder rather than a war wound. The Hard Master survives, Akiko and the Jewel of the Sun are wholly invented, and Snake Eyes is reframed as a Cobra infiltrator who betrays the clan, an origin almost unrecognizable to the source.

Composer Martin Todsharow scored the film, with Paramount Music releasing an unusually generous album on the day of release, more than forty tracks running past eighty minutes, opening with Behind the Mask, Unknown Visitor and Dices Are Fallen. A complete-score edition followed for collectors.

The music leans on taiko percussion and Japanese textures to match the setting, working hardest in the dojo and temple sequences where the film is at its most confident.

For all its reinvention, the ending exists to plant franchise seeds. Scarlett reveals that Snake Eyes's father was a G.I. Joe serving under General Joe Colton, the original Joe, and recruits him into the team. The Baroness, described as second only to the unseen Cobra Commander, pulls Tommy into Cobra, where he takes the name Storm Shadow and swears to kill the man who was once his brother.

The double recruitment splits the Arashikage down the middle and sets the board for the rivalry that defines the brand. Smaller nods reward the faithful, including a Hama character credit honoring the creator and set-piece beats that echo his classic Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow duels.

Paramount cut the theatrical window short after the soft opening, sending the film to digital on August 17, 2021, with 4K, Blu-ray and a SteelBook following in October. The home release carries real extras: deleted scenes and the featurettes Enter Snake Eyes, A Deadly Ensemble and Arashikage.

The standout is Morning Light: A Weapon with Stories to Tell, a short film built around Snake Eyes's sword that adds canon lore existing nowhere else. It is the kind of deep-cut bonus most pages never mention, and a small reward for a film that found more affection at home than it did in theaters.

Hasbro spoiled the costume before any trailer. At Pulse Fan Fest in April 2021, the G.I. Joe Classified movie figures debuted and Henry Golding unboxed his own action figure live on camera, seeing his character's final design for the first time by looking at a toy of himself. The six-inch line included Snake Eyes with the Morning Light sword, plus Storm Shadow, Baroness, Scarlett and Akiko.

A separate Super7 partnership added vintage-styled ULTIMATES and ReAction figures, leaning on nostalgia rather than the film's look, a reminder that even a rebooted Snake Eyes still answers to a toy aisle that predates him by forty years.

A direct sequel had been announced before release, but the film's failure shelved those plans, and the threads it set up went unresolved. The flop also derailed Paramount's hopes of building a G.I. Joe cinematic universe out of the reboot.

Instead, the brand's revival has routed through Transformers. A post-credits tease in Rise of the Beasts in 2023 pointed the way, and at CinemaCon in 2024 Paramount announced a Transformers and G.I. Joe crossover film. Snake Eyes, meanwhile, found a warmer second life on streaming than it ever did in theaters, the rare G.I. Joe entry better remembered after its run than during it.