G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Am I the only sick S.O.B. here who found the original "G.I. Joe" to be entertaining? True it wasn't any kind of masterpiece by any stretch, but I had a shockingly good time watching it. I think the reason was the relatively minimal amount of superfluous B.S. attached to it. It was a movie that knew what it wanted to be, there weren't any notable boring stretches that I recall, and it was so over-the-top that it was just generally kind of awesome in a ridiculous kind of way.

So, as surprising as this may be to people who know me, I was actually looking forward to the sequel. The addition of Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis to the cast was enough to make believe that there might actually be something worthwhile to be found here.

Normally that kind of lead-in implies that I'm about to drop a really negative statement saying that my beliefs were sadly misled, but that's not happening here. Like its predecessor, I enjoyed "G.I. Joe: Retaliation." And like what happened with its predecessor, I'm sure my opinion is going to be a bit outside the normal since I'm guessing most will find it to be dumb. But I call it like I see it.

Following the events from the first film, but only bringing back a scant handful of cast members from it, we find the Joes doing their Joe thing and blowing stuff up, led by Duke (Channing Tatum) and new addition Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson). Apparently they are like BFFs. I had not been aware of that previously, since you know, Roadblock wasn't in the last movie. Meanwhile the POTUS is a Cobra imposter, and takes the opportunity to frame the Joes for...something, I don't know, and under that pretense orders an airstrike which wipes nearly all of them out. This leads to the surprising and frankly gutsy move to kill off Duke in the opening 20 minutes of the film.

Yeah, spoiler alert but honestly, do you really care all that much?

The survivors of the attack, Roadblock, Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianna Palicki) make their way back to the States to deal out the vengeance, as Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and newcomer Jinx (Elodie Yung) reenact the greatest game of Ninja Gaiden ever and pursue evil ninja Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) to a monastery in the mountains. This makes for the most entertaining bit of the movie, as we are treated to absolutely insane ninja shenanigans over, across and around mountainsides as if "Cliffhanger" were suddenly "The Matrix." And that's pretty cool.

That also begins a trend with "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," which is that when you boil it down, this is actually a ninja movie. Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow may not have the most screen time, since that had to be given to the guys with their names big on the poster, but their story contains some of the more memorable moments of the film. And honestly if you took everybody else out you'd still have a reasonably coherent movie reminiscent of something Chuck Norris might have starred in back in the late 80's. And that's kind of awesome.

The President has been kidnapped. And Snake Eyes is indeed a bad enough dude.

If you watch the film from that perspective, it's actually pretty well done. I mean yeah, their storyline has The RZA showing up every once in a while to be really bad at acting, but other than that it's fun. I've seldom reason for complaint when ninja craziness is done well, and this film does indeed feature well done ninja craziness. So point to "G.I. Joe: Retaliation."

The rest of it is just acceptable. It's much like the first movie, being basically a highlight reel of explosions and shell casings flying out from the screen. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. I'm not going to begrudge an action movie for having lots of action. And in a surprising twist, it's actually decently filmed action as well, occasional shaky-cam overindulgence aside. But it does get quite silly as far as the plot goes, and I'm talking the "G.I. Joe" cartoon level silly here. You know, the kind of silly where it stops you in your tracks, makes you do a double take and say "There's no freaking way." The amount that the imposter POTUS is able to get away with simply because he is the POTUS and the military hardware Cobra has simply because they're Cobra and have military hardware is pretty ridiculous.

 Don't you need 2/3's Senate approval to fly evil tyrant overlord banners from the White House?

That does lead to some (possibly intentionally) hilarious moments. My favorite was when the 8 world superpowers at a peace conference all whipped out their Nuclear Holocaust briefcases, which they all had with them just because I guess that's something you never leave home without, and they all pushed The Button in the most severe case of "Well that escalated quickly" ever recorded in movie history. But hey, it's "G.I. Joe." If you're not just rolling with it, your gonna have a bad time. And honestly, that scene did pay off far better than I was expecting it to. Cobra's plot is insane, but it did make the slightest bit of hypothetical sense.
 
I have to admit that I don't like the fact that Channing Tatum isn't in it for very long. I like Dwayne Johnson plenty but Tatum and he have really good chemistry together, far more so than the other two he's with for the majority of the film, and it was a real blow to the film to lose that. Even Bruce Willis just kind of seems bored here when he finally shows up, so it's like Johnson's got nothing to work with. But he and Tatum make a really good team.

So take all that for what it's worth. I'm not sure what I expected, but whatever it was I think I got it. Let it not be said I don't enjoy dumb stuff on occasion. I think it's just a matter of technical skill in which said dumb stuff was done. Hey, I've seen it done way worse. That's got to count for something.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!

And can you believe that, in a startling upset, we have a film with a generic subtitle like "Retaliation" that ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE?! There IS retaliation in this film! And it fits the themes of the movie! I am so shocked by this I can't even tell you. Massive credit to "G.I. Joe" from me.

Check out the trailer for "G.I. Joe Retaliation!"

THE BOTTOM LINE - While "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" is probably going to be looked down at by everyone trying to not appear dumb, I have to admit that it and its predecessor were entertaining. Both films contain imaginative, over-the-top set pieces and action segments, they're pretty to look at, and despite the neutered PG-13 violence they manage to be fairly badass. While I think the previous one was a slight bit better, "Retaliation" had more awesome ninja stuff. I liked it.