GI Joe: Retaliation

Like I said in my Rise of Cobra review. Retaliation is on Netflix, why they have the sequel on there and not the first one is beyond me, however, they did it with Star Trek so I guess I can forgive them.

So, if you watched Rise of Cobra, you'd know that the President of the United States was captured and impersonated by Habib Marwan (He also has a named but I don't know what it is and that's all I know him from, 24.

Well since Rise of Cobra, Duke (Channing Tatum) has taken over as Commander of the Joes. His number two is The Rock. And Marlon Wayans... well he's just gone.

And that's a theme throughout the film. It kind of wants to turn its back on everything from the original and try and redefine the GI Joe franchise. In other words, the franchise was dying before it even lifted off.

It kind of reminds me of what they did with Mortal Kombat.

Yes there was a Mortal Kombat movie and it was bad. Yes it wasn't as bad as its sequel but it was still bad.

And then Mortal Kombat Annihilation came out and half the actors were changed, some of them died and the main reason of that sequel was to show how many fighters from the video game they could show.

GI Joe seemed to do the exact opposite. Though they did have some different actors, for example, Joseph Gordon Levitt couldn't come back for Cobra Commander... wonder why he didn't want to do that, they mainly just brought in a new cast. The remaining cast was killed off and instead of the main reason of the sequel being to show off a bunch of new Joes, they stuck with a few new ones and focused on them instead of the huge cast in the first one.

Does it work better in GI Joe? Well....

After a battle in Pakistan, the Joes are suddenly betrayed by the US government and Duke is killed. Yup Channing Tatum dies.

So after this attack, the President addresses the nation saying that the GI Joes have betrayed their country and he will use all means necessary to find the Joes, establishing a Special Forces organization called Cobra.

Wait a second, aren't the GI Joes suppose to be secret? Why is the President brining up a group to the American people as if they know who they are. Also, isn't GI Joe an multinational organization? Not just an American group? And where the hell is Dennis Quaid?!?

But The Rock and two randos they brought in to create a new cast survive the attack and seek revenge and intend to set things right in the world before Cobra takes over.

In order to do this however, they need to recruit the help of the creator of the GI Joes, General Joe Colton. However, I just call him Bruce Willis.

This is another example of Bruce Willis just trying to get a paycheck, except unlike Fire With Fire, I don't think Bruce Willis totally knew what he was filming. The first scene with him is in his house. I am almost convinced that they showed up at his house while they were shooting and Bruce Willis was just himself while they were filming.

While he's cool in the movie, Bruce Willis just seemed very detached and saying things that didn't really make sense. There's a great scene where he's in the back of a truck, shoots some guys then checks in on the driver. He asks if she's okay, she returns the question and he says, "My cholesterol's a little high" I'm sure that was written but apart of me thinks that was just Bruce Willis only half aware of what movie he was filming and what he was suppose to do or say. In fact I'm almost certain he didn't look at a script once.

But enough about Willis.

Alongside the band of Joes stated before, we cut to a couple scenes of Snake Eyes doing stuff in the mountains. Apparently a couple details from his backstory in the first movie needed to be changed.

Also a lot of the movie tries to focus on Storm Shadow. Oh yeah, some how being stabbed in the stomach twice and falling into water and being in an exploding facility means you make it into the sequel now.

But Storm Shadow begins as a villain, rescuing Cobra Commander from captivity. However as the story goes on, I guess his and Snake Eye's master wasn't killed by Storm Shadow as we first thought but instead was killed by Zartan, or Habib Marwan, or the guy impersonating the President.

So Storm Shadow ends up becoming an ally to the Joes for a short time and with a few more randoms that aren't really developed that well, the team is assembled and its time to stop the imposter President and Cobra Commander from unleashing evil over the world.

Before I go into how the movie was as a whole, I do have to mention on thing.

Cobra Commander actually does look really cool. A part of me thinks he looks silly and I'm not sure if the movie was more serious if it would be taken seriously, but for the campiness of the film, it actually works really well.

Oh and I guess they couldn't afford Christohper Eccelston because they just leave him to die in prison. Not quite sure what they were intending to do by turning him into Destro in the first place but you know, screw him, he's out of the game.

And surprisingly, leaving Destro was the only part of Cobra's plan that wasn't really thought out.

This plot to impersonate the President, seemed to have been a long term game plan, even though it was barely mentioned in the first film, and to give credit where credit is due, Cobra Commander seemed to be totally in the loop despite being imprisoned since the last movie. Its kind of presumptous of them to think they would get a sequel, *Cough Mortal Kombat *Cough but its good they actually had a plan... unlike Mortal Kombat.

I don't know. I mentioned in the last film that I would have liked to see a little bit more realistic, less campy version of GI Joe.

To be fair, they did get rid of the over the top technology from the first film and made the advanced technology more believable. But they traded it in for a more over the top plot.

In short, Cobra Commander just wants to take over the world. Its been a while since a villain has had such a motive and even longer since its been done by brute military force.

While the movie does seem a little bit more like a PG-13 movie than the first one did, it was still campy, it still was just a big video game I couldn't play, and in the end its really just a movie I think I would enjoy if I were drunk. Now I will only let the first movie get away with that. If that had been a standalone movie, I would have been like, "Oh look, a crappy movie I can watch when I'm drunk" But I'm a little less forgiving when it happens again.

There's no character development, no threat of the Joes not making out (except for Channing Tatum) and in the end it really falls flat. Was it fun to watch Bruce Willis not look entirely sure what he was doing on screen. Yes that was fun. However, since he's not in the film enough that doesn't save it.

GI Joe Retalliation is just as much as a piece of crap movie as its original movie was.

But lets be fair, what did I expect? Its GI freaking Joe. Was I expecting The Hurt Locker, no. I mean I understand it is hard to adapt a source material that had a cartoon like this.

I mean there's only so much you can do. Does that forgive the movie? No. Am I going to tell my friends or you that you should take time to watch GI Joe Rise of Cobra or Retaliation? No. Unless your drunk and don't watch both, especially not back to back. I would even say, if I had to choose, watch the first one. Because even the guys who made it knew it was bad. I just read that Retaliation was suppose to be a reboot to the series. While its hard to choose between the extreme campiness of the first one and Bruce Willis really not sure of what he's suppose to do in the second one, I still have to go with the first one.

So there are my thoughts on GI Joe Retaliation. Have you seen both GI Joe movies or have you just seen the second one because it was on Netflix? What did you think? Which one is worse/not as bad? Let me know and comment below.

I'll leave you with this. I was going to leave you with a review of the movie from Cobra Commander himself but something wasn't working with the blog when I tried to post it so instead I'll leave this in a
link. But I will leave you instead with the trailer. Despite not having any desire to see this movie at the time, the music and the fact Bruce Willis pops up in the end really makes this trailer actually pretty cool. Enjoy!