Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

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Not suitable under 14; parental guidance to 16 (violence, themes, language and scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
  • a review of Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 3 August 2021.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 14 Not suitable due to violence, themes, scary scenes and language.
Children aged 14–16 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, themes, scary scenes and language.
Children over the age of 16 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Mature themes, action violence and occasional coarse language
Length: 121 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

A young boy watches his father die and swears vengeance on the man who killed him. As an adult, this boy calls himself Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) after the roll of the dice that ended his father’s life. Working as a street fighter for a living, he takes quite a beating but always triumphs over his opponent. Snake Eyes is soon sought out by a man called Kenta (Takehiro Hira) who offers to track down and deliver his father’s killer. Kenta appears to be recruiting an army of assassins to help him defeat an archrival but Snake Eyes refuses to be a common killer and saves the rival, Tommy’s, life instead. Wishing to pay back the debt, Tommy (Andrew Koji) takes Snake Eyes to his home in Japan where he is next in line to lead a famous clan of Ninja warriors sworn to protect a precious gem with infinite power. Tommy would like Snake Eyes to join them and become a protective warrior as well but in order to do so Snake Eyes must pass three dangerous tests, all designed to reveal if he possesses a pure heart in addition to the skills of a Ninja. Snake Eyes feels the pull towards a home and a family that he never had but perhaps even greater than his wish to belong is his desire for revenge. When Kenta teams up with the evil Baroness (Ursula Corbero) to steal the gem and destroy Tommy and his clan, Tommy enlists help from his old friends the Joes, who give Snake Eyes a new perspective and help him see that there is a greater enemy than the man who ended his father’s life.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Revenge; Murder of a parent; Good versus evil; Violence as a means to solve conflict; Traditional values versus New Age thinking.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Snake Eyes and another man fight in a cage. They punch, hit, throw, pin down, and kick each other in the chest and throat. They smash each other’s head into concrete, one attacks with a sledgehammer while the other strangles his opponent with heavy chains.
  • A guy holds a knife to Tommy’s throat while Snake Eyes is ordered to kill him.
  • There are numerous and frequent martial arts fight scenes throughout the film with characters sword fighting, hitting, stabbing, punching, slicing, slamming, shoving, kicking, throwing, flipping their opponents etc.
  • Snake Eyes is stabbed in the chest as multiple swords are shoved through the canopy and sides of a truck.
  • Snake Eyes and another man fight over bowls of water.
  • A woman smashes three men with frying pans.
  • A girl fights back against 3 men who are trying to kill her.
  • A character is shot twice in the chest by someone in the Russian mafia.
  • Snake Eyes holds a sword to the neck of the man who killed his father.
  • Characters flip over cars and motorcycles as they are driven recklessly through Japanese traffic, sword fighting, kicking, punching, and pushing people out of moving vehicles in the process.
  • Kenta explodes people using the power of the gemstone.
  • Characters have a gun fight as a home and temple go up in flames.
  • One man takes on twenty men with an axe.
  • A character is strangled with chains.
  • Tommy’s grandmother runs from the fire while Kenta blocks her in, trying to burn her alive.
  • There are numerous Ninja fights where one character takes on twenty or more opponents.
  • A car explodes and a character takes an arrow through the eye.
  • Tommy’s grandmother slices throats with her fan.
  • A grenade explodes and numerous characters disappear.
  • Tommy tries to blow up Kenta using the power of the gem but Kenta disappears as well.
  • A character is stabbed in the chest.
  • Kenta chops off the head of a giant snake and another snake eats him alive.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Giant snakes that kill anyone without a pure heart, hiss and slither and strike at Snake Eyes the first time he encounters them. They are very creepy and scary and nearly kill him. The second time he sees them an opponent chops off one of the giant heads before being eaten alive. It is brutal and sudden and likely to be very disturbing for young viewers.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • As a little boy, Snake Eyes watches his dad from a closet as men threaten to kill him. He tries to save his father but only manages to escape with his life. He is nearby when his father is brutally shot and watches their home burn to the ground.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • A Hyundai is shown with a close-up on the car’s logo.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Some characters drink whisky.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Bitch
  • Shit
  • Ass
  • Fuck.

In a nutshell

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is an action adventure film with a fast paced, albeit predictable, plot. A prequel to the previous G.I. Joe films, based on two of the comic series' main characters and filled with violence, this is not a family movie but rather one that will be best enjoyed by fans of the franchise and mature audiences. Not suitable under 14 and parental guidance to 16.

The main messages from this movie are that power comes from discipline and that we all make mistakes – it is what we do afterwards that really matters.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Courage
  • Discipline
  • Teamwork
  • Truthfulness
  • Loyalty.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Channelling all your thoughts towards vengeance.
  • Using violence as a means to solve conflict.
  • Murdering people with no regard or respect for life.
  • Wanting to be all powerful and the lengths you would have to go to and the people you would have to hurt to get there.
  • Being set in your own way of thinking and refusing to look at new possibilities.
  • Getting angry quickly and simply reacting as opposed to processing the moment and acting when calm.