G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Saw it Tuesday in 3D. Starts out with a recap type computer projection explaining the Joes and what has happened since Rise of Cobra. So seeing the first is not required. It is no where near as campy as the first which is good imo. Has good action with the Rock as the main Joe. Lots of ninja scenes with Snake Eyes Storm Shadow and Jynx. Leaves a good solid opening for a third movie at the end. Lots of named Joes and Cobras "die" but as this is GI Joe no one is really dead until they are dead and buried and no one was buried in this movie. Planning on seeing it a few more times this week in 2D.

I liked Rise of Cobra a lot, and I like Retaliation as well. Both have parts that are better then the other but in the end I think Retaliation is better. Sorta how I liked Star Wars: New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, liked them both but liked Empire Strikes Back more. It's not quite on that level but pretty close for me.

I went to see this ...

... expecting a bad plot and it was a bit worse than expected.

... hoping for some good action scenes/choreography as the director made dance movies and I was underwhelmed.

... curious about the cliff side ninja scene that is in the trailer and it was nothing much (to be fair, I saw a corean action movie last week called The Thieves that has the most insane action scene on the side of a building since Tsui Hark's Time and Tides).

... to check Elodie Young - a very athletic and charismatic french/cambodian actresse - in an american movie, but her part is tiny and I don't know if it's the acting, the direction or the editing, but she seems a bit like a fish out of water.

... to confirm Adrianne Palicki is super hot. Yep. She is. To the point it must be pretty hard to cast her (a shame, because she is also a decent actress who works well in action and in comedy).

... because of the intriguing male cast. It feels like they had some fun playing the parts and, in the case of Tatum/Johnson, bouncing off each other.


A pleasant surprise was some elements of meta-humors in the editing (following an action scene by a speech scene that starts by some clapping, following a crude remark in a scene by a slap in another, video games, etc).


In a scale going from -1 to 4 (yuck, meh, why not, ok, good, great) I rated it 'why not' (the same as the previous one incidently - I noted that Vosloo then had almost no screen time but managed to nevertheless bring his character to life... sadly, he has even less screen time in Retaliation).


PS: 3D serves no purpose and the action scenes, with their frantic editing, even make it a hindrance.

Better than the first. Good but not great. Better story than I expected. Worth a watch if you ever cared about GI Joe as a kid.

It was twice as good as the first one. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, it was a solid 4. Having the star power of The Rock and Bruce Willis helped a lot... and the ninja's did their damn thing. Also, Adrianne Palicki is super fucking hot, wears this red dress, and then takes that red dress off... definitely a wow moment.

I'll take two hours of the Arashikage please thanks. Mindless entertain check. The first movie was more like the comic book. Bad laughs, impossible bullshit and plots. This movie was more like the comics. More serious tone, more (better) action, but not the same heart. It's crazy to say, but you had more character development in Rise of Cobra than Retaliation. Before you say, WTF I need character development for, even with the comics and the cartoon you had enough that each character had somewhat of a backstory.

Olebass_sl said:

Sounds like it would be a 7 or so with me then.
I require no plot or things to make sense in sci-fi action movies. I only require stupid one liners and things get blown up.

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Firefly is your guy then. That is pretty much all he does besides fighting with The Roadblock (Rock).

Olebass_sl said:

Sounds like it would be a 7 or so with me then.
I require no plot or things to make sense in sci-fi action movies. I only require stupid one liners and things get blown up.

Click to expand...

It's not a sci-fi movie. The first one sorta was, but this one isn't. It's a military action/adventure flick. And there are lots of stupid one liners and lots of things getting blown up, so you'll probably like it if that's your thing.

Personally, I thought it was better than the first, but just barely. Sadly, turning off my brain in movies rarely works, particularly when the plot is so inept. They got some of the technical stuff right, but that was offset by how much they got completely wrong.


G.I.JOE: The Rise of Cobra I'd give a 3 out of 10 (mostly because of Marlon Wayans).

G.I.JOE: Retaliation I'd give 4 out of 10 (only because of Adrianne Palicki).

My "favorite" bad plot moment:

Szlia_sl said:

My "favorite" bad plot moment:

Spoiler

Is when the double agent that could, you know, save the lives of 6 million people, does nothing. Worse: there is not even a shot on him to show he can't or won't do something...

My second "favorite" is when Roadblock says "now, I only trust one guy: Snake Eyes" and in his next scene he meets a guy and says "we can trust him, he is childhood friend!"

Also, my astrophysics is a bit rusty, but if a satellite let go of something, doesn't the something just stay where it is relative to the satellite?

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Jarnin_sl said:

Spoiler

I think the Zeus sats were using magnets to accelerate the tungsten rods towards their target and letting gravity do most of the work, but if they were just releasing them? Yeah, they'd stay put for the most part.

And about those satellites... How about when Roadblock hits the "abort firing sequence" button on the suitcase at the last second and it causes all the satellites to explode!

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This was kind of like the mcdonald's of movies - everything slick, very consistent quality, absolutely no surprises and not that great.

Still, it was entertaining at least. Even if I was frustrated by the flying rope ninjas - shortern the rope by a few feet morons ;p

My professional review:

This movie was terrible.

i really like the rock. too bad all of his movies suck. was hoping he would become the next arnold. instead, he's a bad mix of stallone and van damme.

Yea it seems like the rock has no filter at all and pretty much does any role hes offered.. its a shame he just pounds out shit pop movies