When I was a boy, with a keen sparkle in my eye and a head full of dreams, nothing was cooler than G. I. Joe. Despite growing up in Canada, nothing got me more excited than the ring of the school bell at 3:30pm, because that meant I could go home and thrill to the poorly animated adventures of those real American heroes. As a kid, I wanted to be Snake-Eyes when I grew up. In fact, I still think I want to be Snake-Eyes. He was a ninja with a killer outfit and he got to periodically make out with Scarlet. Seeing as I have a thing for ninjas and redheads, it all kind of adds up, now that I think about it.

But I digress.

Those loveable patriotic super solider types are back, and whereas they used to be poorly animated by hand, now they're all CGI-riffic and looking like something out of a Final Fantasy game for the PS2. It's all good though. Many of the old characters are still here (along with some keen new ones), and the Cobra soldiers still have really bad aim. Valor Vs. Venom is simply an updated, very polished version of the same cartoon I loved as the sparkly eyed lad that I used to be. Hopefully the current generation of sparkly eyed lads out there will dig on this new version as much as I dug on the old one.

The Joe team is off doing some charity work one day with the evil minions of Cobra kidnap groups of adults from all corners of the globe. Why? Because Cobra Commander needs victims to subject to his new super solider idea – he's going to cross them with animals and create and army of super Cobra soldiers. To make matters worse, Destro, along with everyone's favorite leather clad villainous, The Baroness, kidnaps Hawk. They figure Hawk is a sure bet to lead the new army of manimal soldiers, and now that they've got him, they're unstoppable!

Hawk's right hand man, Duke, he's got other plans. He gathers up the team and kicks "Operation Find Hawk And Get Him Back" into high gear. It's too little too late for Hawk though, as Destro and Cobra Commander succeed in mutating him, redubbing him with the ominous moniker of Venomous Maximus! Will the Joe's be able to steal Hawk back and reform him to his previous in carnation? Will they be able to stop Cobra and their army of Venom warriors from taking over the world? I'm not going to tell you that. That would ruin all the fun.

G. I. Joe – Valor Vs. Venom is a lot of fun. Sure, the dialogue sounds like it was written by a twelve-year-old but hey, look at their target audience – this is a show geared towards boys so maybe it's supposed to sound that way. Either way, the show runs along at a nice quick pace and provides plenty of action and adventure, spills and chills and whatever other clichés you want to throw in to describe a good, solid adventure cartoon.

Video:

The 1.33.1 fullframe image looks quite nice, with nice bright color reproduction and a noticeable lack of compression artifacts and edge enhancement. There are a few scenes in the movie that are a little bit shimmery in a couple of places but other than that, this movie looks great. Black levels are deep and solid and remain that way from start to finish and the colors never bleed into one another as sometimes seems to happen with cartoons.