G.I. Joe: Retaliation

 

2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was one of that year's guilty pleasures for me.  It was big, it was loud, and it was as dumb as a brick, but I couldn't help but watch it with a big, goofy grin on my face.  It worked for me in that special kind of way that only truly enjoyable trash can.  On the opposite side of the coin, we have G.I. Joe: Retaliation.  It's just as big, just as loud, and probably even dumber than the original.  I didn't smile once.  In fact, I found the whole thing kind of insufferable.

I am willing to admit that I am in the minority when it comes to my enjoyment of the first Joe film.  Heck, even the studio was disappointed with it, seeing as they're essentially using this movie almost as a reboot, instead of a sequel.  Only a handful of actors from the first movie have returned, and most who have come back are pushed to the sidelines for most of the film's running time.  The newcomers in the cast include Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock, D.J. Cotrona as Flint, Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye, and Bruce Willis as General Joe Colton.  Why am I just listing the names of the characters and the actors who play them?  Because that's really that's all that needs to be said about these characters.  Everybody makes such a small impression, there's little worth mentioning.  I have enjoyed Dwayne Johnson in many films, and find him a very likable action star.  But even his natural charm can't help him out here.  And Bruce Willis is once again in total paycheck mode, looking quite bored and irritated to be stuck in this film.  He's been coming across that way to me in a lot of recent films he's done.  Maybe the guy needs a break.

So, since there's little focus on characters, then the movie must really excel when it comes to action, right?  One would certainly think, and definitely hope so.  But director Jon M. Chu gives the movie an overall flat look and tone.  Nothing excites, and nothing really makes you feel that certain rush of adrenalin that a truly great action film can.  Well, okay, I have to be honest - There is one well-executed action scene in the film.  It involves a battle between ninjas as they scale the side of a mountain.  This seven minute scene alone holds more life and excitement than the other 1 hour and 43 minutes of the movie.  There's even some impressive stunt work during it, though I'm sure a lot of it was aided with CG.  During this sequence, I could hear the audience finally start to get excited.  They were getting involved in the action for the first time.  Then the scene ends, the movie goes back to its perfunctory self, and the audience is lulled back into boredom.

I'm still trying to figure out how Chu and the two credited screenwriters made this thing so boring.  After all, the plot reads like a loopy Saturday Morning Cartoon crossed with the loopiest James Bond movie ever conceived.  The evil terrorist, Zartan, has been impersonating the President of the United States using nanotechnology.  The President is played by Jonathan Pryce (one of the few actors from the first film to come back), so he gets to play a dual role of both the actual President, and the evil impostor who is currently residing in the White House.  No wonder he comes across as the only actor having any fun in this movie.  This is all part of a very convoluted scheme to have the evil organization of Cobra take control of the world's powers.  Zartan's first action as the impostor President is to kill off most of the G.I. Joes, so that only a small handful are left.  He accomplishes this with the aid of a supervillain who calls himself Firefly (Ray Stevenson), because he likes to use little robotic firefly weapons that blow up when they come in contact with their target.  Their ultimate goal is to free their leader, Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey), who is being kept in suspended animation in a tube in a top secret underground prison. 

There are a bunch of subplots too, because you need subplots in a movie where the President is actually an evil terrorist in disguise and is threatening to hold the world hostage.  These include the evil ninja Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) having a personal crisis when he discovers his past isn't what he thinks it is, and is forced to team up with his long-time rival, the G.I. Joe ninja Snake Eyes (Ray Park).  This could have been engaging, but Snake Eyes never talks in the movie, he only pantomimes.  This must make it difficult when he's trying to explain his plan of attack to his fellow team members.  Oh, and speaking of Storm Shadow, early on in the movie, he frames Snake Eyes for murdering the President of Pakistan.  This would be a major plot point in most movies, but here, is pretty much forgotten about as soon as it happens.  Only in a movie this bad could a character who uses exploding fireflies for weapons hold more weight than the assassination of the Pakistan President.

 

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is utter nonsense, but it doesn't have the sense to be fun nonsense.  It it winds up making more money than the earlier movie, then I will lose hope in the movie-going public of being able to tell the difference between good trash and bad trash.  I so desperately wanted a similar experience to the first Joe movie, which found a way to reach my inner 10-year-old, and make me happy in a goofy sort of way.  All this movie managed to do was make me bitter, cynical, and angry.

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