“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” released in 2009, was, without mincing words, a bad movie. I had fun seeing it, but it was an nearly incomprehensible mess.
Its new follow-up/quasi-reboot, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” is what a G.I. Joe movie should be. It’s still big and silly and full of improbable action and a paper-thin plot, just like “Rise of Cobra,” but at least the paper-thin plot makes sense. The characters, while stock, are likable. And, best of all, the entire movie is infused with a lightness and humor that it desperately needs. It is, after all, a movie based on a toy line and Saturday morning cartoons.
“G.I. Joe: Retaliation” follows the elite fighting squad known as the G.I. Joes as they fight Cobra Commander and his minions. OK, that’s pretty much the plot of everything “G.I. Joe”-related, at least according to my husband. (I am not terribly well-versed in “G.I. Joe” lore.)
In this movie, Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey), with the help of his minions, Firefly (Ray Stevenson) and Zandar (Matt Gerald), takes over the government and frames the Joes for an attack on the U.S. military. Roadblock (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) and Flint (D.J. Cotrona) must unravel the real reason for the attack while staying out of Cobra’s way. There is also a plot about the mysterious ninja Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and his protege Jinx (Elodie Yung), attempting to find Snake Eyes’ enemy Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) so he can answer for the murder of their ninja clan master. In case you were worried, the plots do eventually intersect.
But, if you’re seeing “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” you’re probably not really there for the plot, and luckily, you don’t need to worry too much about it. Everything is well explained, even if the occasional long stretch of dialogue gets a little hokey, and the world makes sense - bad guys look menacing, and good guys look attractive.
Tell the truth — if you buy a ticket for “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” the real reason you’re seeing it is for the action. This movie has a lot of it, but the sequences are well-choreographed and never get boring. I especially loved an extended sequence featuring Snake Eyes and Jinx fighting a small army of bad ninjas on a mountainside — it was practically plucked from a martial arts movie — but every time the plot got tossed aside in favor of swords, fists and progressively larger guns, I sat up a little straighter in my seat.
The thing that really made “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” enjoyable, though, was the humor infused in it. One of my problems with “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” (and a lot of other big-budget bad action movies) is that the filmmakers try to act like it’s as serious as an Oscar-winning drama. Not so with this movie. It was just plain silly, and everybody involved knew it. When there was an opportunity for a joke or a sight gag, they took it, although they also didn’t try to shoehorn comedy into places where it didn’t help the movie very often.
Whoever chose to cast Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the lead character deserves a prize. Johnson has the wonderful ability to infuse humor in a movie without hamming it up, which serves the movie well. (His gigantic muscles did not detract from the film, either.) While their screen time together is brief, his chemistry with Channing Tatum, who plays Duke, is excellent. The pair of them needs to be in another movie together soon. There is also an appearance from one of the great masters of action himself, Bruce Willis, as the original Joe, Gen. Joseph Colton, which brightens up the movie considerably.
You have a general idea of what you’re getting into when you see “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” but the good news is that it’s probably the best possible version of a G.I. Joe movie you can imagine. It’s a big bunch of fluff, of course, but it’s silly, enjoyable fluff.
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