WE HAVE become accustomed to the feeling of deflation that accompanies the release of a film that has been hugely hyped on the electronic ether. Prime culprit Snakes on a Planewould have gone down a lot better if the bloggers and posters hadn't suggested it was sure to be a cult classic.

Here's a thought. Perhaps, in an effort to massage expectations downwards, the studio behind GI Joehas been deliberating spreading negative word about their film around Ain't It Semi-literate.com. (Paramount lawyers please note: this is a gag. We do not actually believe this.)

It hasn't worked. GI Joe: The Rise of Cobrastill seems every bit as appalling as advance word has suggested. The film is, of course, inspired by the American version of Action Man, and the plot plays out as if three four-year-olds in a sandpit worked it out while waiting for SpongeBobto start. Then they go underwater and then Sienna Miller blows up the Eiffel Tower and then Christopher Eccleston has his face burnt off and then Action Man rides his motorbike in the rain. And then.

And then. And then.

To be fair, Stephen Sommers, director of such unlovely films as The Mummyand Van Helsing, deliberately nudges the film into cartoon territory. The thin characterisation and breathless pace are, thus, entirely justifiable. But nothing can excuse such affronts to taste as Eccleston's jaw-dropping attempt to essay a Scottish master-villain. Furiously chewing his dialogue into flayed porridge, Oor Chris permits the impression that an amateur panto in Auchenshoogle is missing its Baron Hardup. "He's thrown the caber clean out of the yard," he says, admiring another character's achievement.

There really is too much galloping absurdity on display to allow anything but the most cursory of summaries. Why do all weapons of mass destruction in such films rely on phials of fluorescent green fluid? Did they consciously create a shot-by-shot restaging of the opening scene in Team America: World Police?What were they thinking when they put a raven wig on Sienna Miller's famously indistinct head? I had just about learnt how to recognise the blonde version. Now I'm all at sea again.

Directed by Stephen Sommers. Starring Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt 12A cert, gen release, 118 min