Three pieces of casting for the upcoming Stephen Sommers' GI Joe film have been announced:
Dennis Quaid will play "General Hawk", the grizzled (and possibly wheelchair-bound) mentor to the main character "Duke Hauser", as played by newcomer Channing Tatum. To me, this has easily been the strongest casting to date getting a veteran actor signed up to the film. Of course, Quaid is not exactly the box-office draw he used to be back in the 80s and whatnot, but perhaps it adds a little bit of respect to this already scoffed at project... *cough*Marlon Wayans*cough*...
Next up, Arnold Vosloo has been cast as "Zartan", who next to "Storm Shadow" is the next cool badass on the villainous Cobra side. Zartan is said to be the master of disguise and possess martial arts skills on par with "Snake Eyes" and "Storm Shadow" so expect some kind of ninja smackdown coming your way. I'm quite pleased with this casting because Vosloo has always been badass since playing "Pick" in John Woo's Hard Target (1993) and obviously, "Imhotep" in another Stephen Sommers film - The Mummy (1999). I get the feeling his performance will be a memorable one, unlike some other films... *cough*Darkman III*cough*...
And finally, complete unknown Irish actor David Murray will play ultra-villain "Destro"! Murray was probably last seen as the "Jumpy Bad Guy" in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005) being surprised by an upside-down Christian Bale... whether Batman tried to plant a kiss on him like Tobey Maguire did in Spider-Man is unknown, but hey, life's too short. I did think it was funny that they got an Irishman to play a character that is Scottish (there's a joke in there somewhere) but why the hell not Sean Connery?! Come on!
Let's just hope he doesn't look as much of a gimp as this dude...
*cough*... Gimp...*cough*
Source: Variety and IESB
September 24, 2008, 01:41:07 AM
