Starring: Don Johnson, Burgess Meredith, Sgt. Slaughter
Written by: Ron J. Friedman
Directed by: Don Jurwich
An animated Sgt. Slaughter
There are very few people with a voice as instantly recognizable and evocative as Bob Remus’ — which is perhaps why the ‘Sgt. Slaughter’ character fit so perfectly into the G.I. Joe universe. In G.I. Joe: The Movie Sgt. Slaughter is given the unenviable task of training a group of young G.I. Joe team hopefuls during a time of crisis, throwing them into action before they’re ready (why does that always happen?). The real challenge, of course, is trying to sell the new characters to the audience, and linking them in the storyline to Slaughter makes a lot of sense. He’s a straightforward and likeable character so, essentially, any friend of Slaughter’s is a friend of ours.
The story itself gives us a pretty convoluted introduction to a new breed of villain. G.I. Joe’s enemy, COBRA, was a pretty easy-to-digest terrorist group that simply wanted to rule the world and carve their leader’s face onto the surface of the moon with a giant laser. The movie gives us a species that has been driven underground by the growth of the human population, and now they want nothing more than to reclaim the earth and destroy all mankind. Their leader is voiced by Burgess Meredith (Rocky III), who provides a certain elegance to an otherwise ludicrous situation.
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