‘G.I. Joe Retaliation’ Review

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For fans of G.I. Joe, most will be pleased to know that Jon Chu’s G.I. Joe Retaliation sticks closer to the source material and is better movie than its last iteration.  Let’s get that compliment out of the way now, because it’s only one of two that will be contained in this review. This is a complete mess of a movie that can’t seem to keep a consistent thought and seems to have more ADD than the kids who had every one of the figures growing up.  Let’s play with Snake Eyes, no, Duke, no, Roadblock, oh so many Joes to choose from.

The movie starts off with an action scene involving the Joes rescuing an Asian guy from some reason, in order to fill us in on who each character is and what their specialty is. This effort feels entirely fruitless since two scenes later, the majority of the Joes get killed off after Cobra sets them up. Yes, Channing Tatum fans, he does bite it very early in the flick. This was one of the reasons the film underwent extensive reshoots- Paramount wanted more Tatum.  This, however, consisted of tacked on throwaway scenes of Tatum and Dwyane Johnson being friends with each other in a failed attempt at showing their more comedic sides. These scenes were completely unnecessary and proved to be the first of many slaps to the face this movie would deal out.

After the pointless action scene at the start of the film, another action scene involving the Joes stealing some warheads, then another action scene where they all get killed, that’s when the real action starts.  From here, the film morphs into three smaller, yet equally horrible films.

First, we have the Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Jinx, storyline, which is the most entertaining despite another horrendous performance by The RZA. In addition, much of his dialogue is delivered through voice-over for some reason, which makes it all the more laughable.

Then, we have the Roadblock, Flint, Lady Jay storyline which involves them seeking out the original Joe, played by Bruce Willis, in order to help them overthrow Cobra who has employed Zartan to impersonate the President.  This is a ridiculous mish-mash of one-liners, bad performances, and uninspired shootouts.

Finally, there’s the storyline involving Cobra and their ultimate plan of universal domination.  This starts off with a fairly entertaining prison break featuring Walton Goggins as the warden. Goggins proved to give the most entertaining performance of the entire film, despite having less than 10 minutes of screen time.

Though it was addressed during this prison break that Destro was there as well and they even show him, they didn’t release him for some reason.  This brings up the interesting fact that most everyone from the original film is mysteriously absent. Not addressing where these major characters went makes the script feel sloppy and combined with killing off the leader of the Joes within the first 20 minutes, one has to question what they were thinking with this one.

Fortunately, there were some solid action scenes in this movie that saved it from being a completely abhorrent pile of garbage.  Anything involving Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes was very entertaining, and the 9-minute dialogue-free fight scene on a mountainside was certainly the highlight of the film.

In the end, G.I. Joe Retaliation takes a baby step ahead of its first entry, however the series has a long way to go if it ever wants to be taken seriously. My suggestion would be for the studio to forget the first two exist, hire a decent writer, and get a director that wasn’t made famous for Step Up 3D and the Justin Bieber movie.