Review: GI Joe: Retaliation

Review: GI Joe: Retaliation

Okay so the first instalment in this action-packed series (GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra) wasn't that great despite its A-List cast and ambitious scale. Yet with a revitalized group of heroes, a new director and a slightly more serious story, can GI Joe: Retaliation fight back and impress?

Well, yes and no. If you like your movies loud, fast, relentlessly action packed and borderline headache inducing, GI Joe: Retaliation is definitely for you. What it has in its favour is, unfortunately, low expectations thanks to both the dodgy quality of its predecessor and the unease that comes along with Paramount delaying the release of the movie for almost a year. 

What works against it, however, is that the year-long 3D conversion (the reason behind the delay) amounts to very little at all and despite action heavyweights Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Bruce Willis strolling into the fray, the real star of the film seems to be completely ambiguous. At least in The Rise Of Cobra, Channing Tatum was our clear protagonist - Retaliation has so many good guys it's hard to focus on one in particular.

Still, it is better than the first one thanks to its global scale. The finale of part one saw the American president's body taken over by an alien being known as Zartan, the leader of an evil intergalactic force called Cobra. With the government and all of its weapons at his fingertips, he utilizes them to destroy the elite military force known as the GI Joes, claiming that they are traitors and a threat to the safety of the United States. 

After the strike, only a few members of the force survive. Led by Roadblock (Johnson), they team up with the original Joe (Willis) to stop Zartan's plan, which is to persuade all other nations to disable their nuclear weapons so that he may unleash Cobra's secret space-based weapon.

It's a good idea, but it's not good enough. Moving past the fact that it's a sci-fi, the narrative still feels incredibly far-fetched. Are we to believe that all of the United Nations would simply disarm their weapons if one leader commanded it? 

The story won't have you scratching your head anyway. If (like me) you haven't read the comics, you may feel yourself getting lost amongst all the terminology and history here and there, but Retaliation is not about a gripping narrative - it's just a cartoonish, buoyant and over the top summer popcorn flick that's arrived a few months early. In the absence of a Transformers movie this year, the endless (pointless) explosions, ricocheted bullets and samurai swords should please those looking for an hour or two of mindless fun. 

And fun it is - at least now and again. Retaliation may find even the most cynical audience member grinning a little at the cheesy one-liners ("Drive it like you stole it!"), but at times this sequel takes itself a little too seriously for a movie that is essentially, for all intents and purposes, a comic book film. Retaliation does boast some fantastic action scenes though, with one stand out sequence involving ninjas fighting in mid-air miles above the ground. It's all filmed really well and the stunts are carried out skilfully of course. Eagle eyed cinema-goers will know that Ray Park (who played Darth Maul in the Star Wars movies) performs some of the best choreographed fights in the film.

On a personal level though, Retaliation does manage to flesh out a few of its characters pretty well. Johnson's Roadblock is even given the cliche of having two "adorable" kids to look after, while other characters are forced to deal with the loss of their fellow Joes. 

As for Bruce Willis, he gives a pretty disappointing turn as General Joseph Colton, the original Joe. Forced out of retirement to help Roadblock and his gang, Colton is incredibly one-dimensional and it couldn't be clearer that Willis has very little (if any) knowledge of the GI Joe toys and their history - but sticking on his trademark smirk, occasional one-liners and generic bullet spraying, Willis does at least manage to give some well needed attitude to the cast. 

That said, it's hard not to feel as though the Die Hard star was only approached for the part because Retaliation needed to be taken more seriously than it could ever have been without a veteran action star. The rest of the cast is relatively thin on A-listers, and the less said about Channing Tatum's character the better, but suffice to say that his entire two-hour story arc in The Rise Of Cobra is made redundant early on here.

Everything else isn't really worth worrying about. There are of course references to the original film that will be lost on most viewers, and with Cobra Commander (the antagonist from that movie) acting as nothing more than a weak supporting character here, the resolution of the whole story is just far too stupid. Seriously, who has an enormous red button installed on a briefcase to detonate a live nuclear warhead in mid-air? Oh right, of course. Everyone in sci-fi.

Summary

Is GI Joe: Retaliation better than its predecessor, The Rise Of Cobra? Damn straight. Is it a good movie? Well, it depends what you're looking for. If you like your action ridiculous, your headaches strong and your Bruce Willis not really caring about which movie he's in, GI Joe: Retaliation should be on your list.  If, however, you aren't an easily entertained 12-16 year old boy, Retaliation may waste your time. Still, the effective presence of Dwayne Johnson and some really well produced action scenes make Retaliation one of the competitors for best (but pointless) action movie of the year - but it just really wasn't worth the extra year's wait.

5.5/10 - Okay

See it if you liked: GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (2009), Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011), The Avengers (2012)