It is uniformly
agreed that the first attempt at making a live action GI Joe movie—2008’s “GI
Joe: The Rise of Cobra”—was, shall we say, less than agreeable. Many fans were
outraged by its shoddy script, wooden acting, and fakey special effects; all of
which were valid and unavoidable criticisms. Having only recently seen the
first film to review this new sequel I have to agree that “Rise of Cobra”
wasn’t a good movie and many things about it, most of all its general
execution, didn’t work. However, watching it long after its original release
date, it’s fascinating to experience a bloated piece of studio summer merchandise
that was intended to be seen once, bought on DVD, never to be regarded again. It’s like watching an old commercial for Chrystal
Pepsi or the first generation Blackberry, and knowing that despite how impressed
the voice-over copy sounds, we already know the fate that will befall that
product.
Is
“GI-Joe: Retaliation” any better than its predecessor? Sure, in a lot ways it
is. It’s looks better, the tone is consistent, the action-violence has more
heft and the script is actually funny in a way that was intentional. But does
that mean it is all together a better movie or any less throwaway? Most
certainly it does not. After all, this is still a movie that’s based on a toy—which
I was reminded of when they apologetically displayed that big Hasbro logo, just
before the opening credits.
So now that
Cobra has risen, this film jumps a few years later and we notice early on that
half of the cast of the original movie are now inexplicably gone. We do still
have Channing Tatum as the team leader “Duke”, and now, instead of the slightly
miscast Marlon Wayans, we have Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson as Roadblock. Early into the picture many Joes are killed in
a military attack at the GI’s base of operations. It is then up to Roadblock
and his companions, Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne palicki), to
figure who is at the bottom of this attack. Come to find out, Cobra has
infiltrated the white house with a decoy president, who plans to unleash a
satellite super weapon that’s effects are worse than the atomic bomb, but
without all the messy nuclear fallout—and thank heavens that our movie
terrorists are finally figuring out ways to be maniacally destructive AND environmentally
conscious!
Even
though this film employs the highest technical standards of a modern blockbuster,
I couldn’t help but be reminded of the cool-for-cool’s-sake, brainless badass
cinema of the 1980’s. Like those films,
this movie celebrates big guns, big muscles and small plots—complete with a
cold-war analogy involving Jonathan Pryce as the evil president, enacting world
war three at a UN conference. It’s
absolutely stupid and jingoistic and barely anything it is makes any sense.
Characters die for no good reason, people are switching sides and switching
identities, and there’s a whole subplot involving ninjas fighting on a snowy
mountain that practically belongs in a different movie all together…and it’s
all pretty digestible and fun to watch.
In
trading in director Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy”, “Van Helsing”) for Jon M. Chu
(“Step Up 3D”), this sequel facilitates what Chu is good at; making disposable
pop-culture junk food, embracing it’s stupidity and exploiting its base
satisfactions. It also helps that this time around we are treated with a
crackling, sardonic screenplay written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, of “Zombieland”
fame. It’s still a movie based on a toy and it’s inexcusably ridiculous, but is
has ninjas, high tech gadgetry, The Rock saying mouthy one-liners, and Bruce
Willis making a superfluous cameo! As bad as I know it is, it’s harmless and
enjoyable, in that Saturday morning cartoon way.
Grade: C+
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Apr-2013
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