How about the Flint putting up a Hawk flag in the beginning. I hated the reboot/sequel mix. Both created too many plotholes.

"You're out of the band Destro"

This.

C- is a pretty bad grade from my perspective.

He said "sucked" with a "D-" for The Host.

"C-" is more that you liked a few things but overall not your cup of tea, not that it flat-out sucked.

The first film of this series, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is buried as a distant memory. I remember it admirably being a film that justified to have fun, with a willingness to embrace cheese. But the results ended up mixed – with a film too proud of its visual effects and who’s silliness made it less fun than it wanted to be.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a huge upgrade. In fact, it’s one of the best action movies I’ve seen in years!

How did this happen? For one, big credit to director Jon M. Chu who’s talent is on display. The action scenes are refreshingly clean and make easy to see everything happening. This as a contrast to the over-use of messy “shaky-cam” in many action films lately. Chu has a great spatial understanding during the fight scenes. The best example being the swinging lines set piece on the mountain, part of the film’s standout segment with the climb and capture before it. The swinging fight is simply great filmmaking and visual creativity. G.I. Joe: Retaliation walks an interesting line where it’s a film that like the first, just wants to have fun. At the same time, its characters act with a greater self-seriousness than the first’s. As a result underneath all the blockbuster absurdity, there’s a hint of believability that makes its action more engrossing.

But arguably the main reason for the second G.I. Joe film’s success, is its charisma. The actors pulsate with just as much energy as the action scenes. The Rock has to me his best film role yet, mixing intensity and humor as he does so well. Adrianne Palicki, D.J. Cotrona and Elodie Yung are largely plot delivery devices, but at least they look good. By using relatively little heroes without a military supporting cast involved, the protaganists here feel like a tight-knit team, despite a lack of development. Small scenes like their escape from the well helps develop that camaraderie instead.

The supporting characters is where the energy of the film is really established, however. Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes are as cool as ever when fighting or not, the film selling the former’s babyface turn. Bruce Willis, Walton Goggins and Ray Stevenson are overflowing with their signature swag in limited roles, understanding that playing big and winking characters in a film like this can work beautifully. Cobra Commander is used little, but his first line is one of the film’s best. But it’s Jonathan Pryce as Zartan/the President who really steals the show. Making his character hilariously full of wit and quips, really changed the face of the film – while not taking away from the stakes of the climax.

The plot isn’t any more complex than you’d expect, though largely due to Pryce I enjoyed how it embraced the meglomaniac villain plot. Zartan’s evil plan nears Dr. Evil-ian range, in a good way. At this point no save the world plot will feel original, so proudly making the plan as bombastic as possible is refreshing.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is how you make an blockbuster film. Unlike the first film, it doesn’t just want to have fun, it knows how to do it. Its mix of well filmed and clean action scenes, great charisma and humor from its actors, a fast and fun plot and even a little seriousness to give it gravitas. The recipe leads to a near perfect blockbuster. Now this is an action movie.

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Great review, Shack!

I'm glad at least one other KJ'er in the present day can see what a masterpiece of the genre Retaliation actually is. Sure, in the future it will be appreciated by the proles as a gem amongst the dross of current action movies, but then again you have never been one to be hornswoggled by the anti-hype.

No, no, I'm not being tricked by you again, Bradders. You shouted about how glorious Cloud Atlas was and, while it wasn't bad, it wasn't the revelation I was excpecting.

If this is nothing like Rise of Cobra, doesn't mean it's going to be good. It'll just be another type of shit. Where Rise was dog shit, this will be cow dung.

For anyone who saw this in 3D, is it worth the extra $3? I'm planning on seeing it in the next few days. Please let me know.

I pretty much enjoyed it, though I hated some points like the death of one of the main characters, The Rock and Willis pretty much gave all I wanted, plus the fight in the snow mountains was spectacular

it's an improve from the first movie and I am up for a third film

B

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Well, it was shite. One of the worst type of action movie there is. I didn't see one punch, kick, fight or blow in its entirety due to the shittest editing and PG-esque fight choreography ever. It truly was dire. The dialogue was also awful in an "America, fuck yeah" kind of way. It was all very gung-ho and totally tiresome.

There were 4 things that I somewhat liked (total run time ~60 secs):

1. The fake President playing Angry Birds.
2. The shot of the avalanche onto the mount.
3. The shot of The Rock walking away at the end when Ray Stevenson explodes.
4. The London explosion (although it was extremely brief).

The rest of the film, everything about it, was tacky, cheesy, childish rubbish. I had to laugh, at the start when The Rock said "we can only trust Snake Eyes".... at which point he started trusting EVERYONE. His black friend that lets him use the gym, Bruce Willis, Storm Shadow, Jinx ... I mean, that's four people and one of them was the fucking enemy!! They obviously wanted to make that line seem gung-ho as well, and I admit that "we can only trust 5 people" doesn't sound as cool, but only trusting one person is also extremely generic and is probably said in EVERY action movie ever made. Just don't say anything at all, or say "we don't know who we can trust", also generic, but at least it's not riddled with holes.

I was glad that Channing Tatum died, but his death was a complete cop out. They didn't show anything. It was shit. Also, the film didn't need to be in 3D. A waste of 8 months.

The film was a mess. It skipped from scene to scene, location to location abruptly, and the scenes didn't gel well. I couldn't have cared less that the G.I. team all died, or what one team was doing in another part of the world. The were so many plot holes. I mean, how did Snake Eyes know about everything that was going on yet he was on top of a snowy mountain? There were lots of things like this. It was just a fucking joke. The Rock was wasted, and I think out of all of it, the best acting goes to Arnold Vosloo (which says a lot). Another thing that was incredibly eye-rolling was how the ugly-as-fuck "Brenda" only had to show some cleavage to every man and he was like putty in her hands. What the fuck?? Seriously, are we still fine with making men seem like fucking idiots yet we are forced to empower women?

I felt that Cobra Commander and his team were too easily overthrown by The Rock, some guy, Bruce, and Brenda. A little firefight, some showy stunts, and that was it, he just fucked off in a helicopter. The Cobra Commander was actually not bad. Closest to the cartoon series. The two ninjas, in fact the whole ninja thing in these movies is terrible, and must have been made for 5 year-olds. I was bored by all of it. The first two scenes, being at night, I couldn't see a thing. I knew action was taking place, but the filming was awful. And I loathed the attempts at humour between Dwayne and Channing. Both cannot act, and the attempted humour was very bad anyway. It's a sad day for film when a wrestler and a model are taking lead roles away from proper actors. Unless, you know, none of the real actors wanted to be involved in this tripe.

Just as bad as the first one. The director doesn't know how to shoot action, tell a story, have actors that can deliver dialogue, keep suspense, keep interest, keep the camera still, and maintain continuity.

F

Good review and mostly agree and agree in the totality of it being crap.

I liked the first one. It was incredibly stupid, but it was also quite a bit of fun. Maybe it was because I was half out of it thanks to this cold I have, but I didn't have nearly as much fun this time around.

It has a couple of fun scenes that were quite enjoyable and well directed (the opening raid, the mountains), but the rest of the movie just fell flat for me, with the lone exception of Jonathan Pryce is looks like he's just having a blast here. And I was kind of amazed at how bland Adrianne Palicki (hello stone tits) and D.J. Cotrona were.

And the RZA...he's gotta be a fucking idiot right? What else explains this and The Man with the Iron Fists?

- (C)

I'm just not getting into these G.I. Joe movies. Hated this one almost as much as the first.

Much better than the first, but still not great. I don't understand why Storm Shadow was fighting for Cobra if he knew they betrayed him all along. Is it just so both sides have a ninja?

Well, it's not shit. The action scenes are pretty cool, I also like most of the little jokes here and there. Palicki is pretty much perfect in this. I want to see more of her. She was good in John Wick too.
Definitely a mistake to kill of Tatum, even he died, I was expecting him to come back later. I guess he grew out of the level of this film and I can't blame him.
Willis was a big disappointment, he dragged the film down more than he lifted it up. Just a cash grab from him I felt.
The Rock was great, and some of the mythology of the film was also fun. The whole Dojo story then again was poorly done, and RZA just plays such a laughably bad role.

It's a mixed bag really.

C