GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra (12A), Stephen Sommers (118 mins)

The director Stephen Sommers, on the strength of his blockbusters The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, is now styled “explosive and visionary”.

That’s another way of saying he blows up a lot of scenery, never more so than in this action hardware thriller based, I’m afraid to say, on Action Man (called GI Joe in the US). The defiantly uncharismatic Channing Tatum leads a crack team of commandos into battle against slimy arms dealer Christopher Eccleston, who happens to be smooching with Tatum’s ex (Sienna Miller) in between selling to the highest bidder. I was more excited by last week’s G-Force 3-D, if only because the guinea pigs give the better performances.