These are strange times we live in. People my age grew up playing with 12-inch-tall versions of “G.I. Joe” characters, imagining wondrous adventures as we grew up in the ’80s. Now, Hollywood is bringing back “Transformers,” “Smurfs” and all the rest — and risking our beloved memories as they attempt to see if we’re still interested.
A little while back, the surreal became real as I walked around the set of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” and witnessed elaborate props and highly paid stars attempting to re-create what we used to do in our backyards for free. And what I saw had this lifelong fan of the franchise thinking, “Yo, Joe!” as often as it did “No, Joe!”
