The “G.I. Joe” Parody’s Blue-Chip Cast: Julianne Moore and Billy Crudup
[The Wall Street Journal, 12 August 2009]

By Richard Morgan

The effete intelligentsia has been beating up on “G.I. Joe” a little over the last few days. Although, really, how hard is it to make fun of a movie that tries to make Americans care about the Eiffel Tower. Or where Cobra, the ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world, is headed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt? And, c’mon, it was an uphill battle to try and top the 1987 animated film’s epic opening sequence. Still, the FunnyorDie folks have trumped it all.

Their ballad about the off-duty lives of America’s daring highly-trained special mission force and its archnemesis, Cobra. What’s remarkable — and really the greatest insult here — is that the cast of the ballad is so much more credentialed than the cast of the actual blockbuster: four-time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore, Tony winner and indie darling Billy Crudup, “Hangover” madman Zach Galifianakis and more. Including a real touch of class: a cameo by Sgt. Slaughter himself.

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