Archived: Review: G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) - archived

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What do you do to reboot a franchise? You bring in ‘The Rock’. But whilst it worked for Fast 5, it really flops here and once again G.I. Joe is left in a state of abandonment.

Picking up where the first left off, Cobra have infiltrated the White House and have an imposter in place as President! He orders the death of the Joes and in a massacre only Roadblock (Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) and Flint (D.J. Cotrona) survive. They must work together, with a little help from an original Joe (Bruce Willis), to bring down Cobra and save the world!

Saving the world does come a little too late for poor old London however, as in a strange plot twist the Cobra president convinces the world leaders to nuke each other only then to get them to stop which is followed by Cobra unleashing ‘Zeus’, a giant space gun that levels all of London.

That is just one of the many ridiculous action sequences you can expect and about the level of intelligence you’re working with. To add further confusion to the whole thing, Snake-Eyes is captured and imprisoned alongside Destro and the Cobra Commander only it turns out to be Storm-Shadow and after an outbreak it turns out Storm-Shadow was blamed for the murder of his master when really it was Zartan. Thus he was wrongly forced into a life of crime…yeah, because that makes total sense – just like this paragraph.

The action is explosive but it doesn’t really make any serious impact. Whilst this is a movie based on action figures and in a child’s imagination anything is possible, on screen, it really shouldn’t be. There is once particular sequence where ninjas are chasing the real Snake-Eyes and his partner Jinx across the mountain tops using Batman style grappling guns whilst trying to escape with the unconscious body of Storm-Shadow.

So you can expect high octane levels of ridiculousness here but not a lot else. The death of the Joes doesn’t have any great impact. Despite Roadblock having two children at home who presume their father was killed in action, we don’t see anything from them other than the hugs when he comes home. There is no emotion and nor is there any humour. The Rock is given very little to work with, his early rounds with Duke show promise as do the later ones with Joe but as Bruce is kept off the screens foolishly, these exchanges aren’t enough to save the film.

Those expecting a mindless popcorn chomper will probably leave disappointed, not even the action sequences can help save the movie. After taking a second bite at the cherry, another stab at the franchise, I think its time for the Joes to go MIA.

Archived: Review: G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) - archived
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