If I was to ask you to mix the perfect ingredients for a
fanboy soup, what would you include? If you said ninjas, hot chicks with guns,
over the top villains things exploding and a shot of nostalgia for taste, than
you would be spot on. You would have also listed all of the things in GI Joe: Retaliation, so does the delayed
sequel to the surprisingly fun 2009 hit GI
Joe: The Rise of Cobra equal the sum of it’s parts? Yes and no, but more on
that later, first you need to know exactly how we got to where we are. The
first film ended with Storm Shadow apparently dead, and the evil trio of Cobra
Commander, Baroness, and Destro all in custody. Not to go down without an Ace
in the hole Cobra did manage to get their master of disguise, Zartan, in a
fairly good position…that of President of the United States of America. When Retaliation starts we are treated to a
rundown of the Joe team, led by Duke (Channing Tatum), in a very cool title sequence
that is presented in a way very reminiscent of the bio cards that we all know
from the backs of our countless action figure Christmas presents. The team we
know, save for Duke and Snake Eyes, is inexplicably missing with a new squad in
their place comprised of franchise favorites Roadblock (Dwayne ‘The Rock’
Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrienne Palicki), Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and a few others
that you don’t see long enough to worry about. Snake Eyes (Ray Park) is still
around, though he is off on another mission…that of training cult fan favorite
Jinx (Elodie Young) in the art of being a bad ass ninja (that’s a technical
term by the way). All is not well in Joe-ville for long when Zartan, still in
disguise as the President while the real POTUS is kept underground at a
Presidential vacation home, enacts a plan to put COBRA in power and eliminate
the Joes for good. What follows is a classic FUBAR situation wherein the Joes
are attacked and almost fully eradicated then framed for the assassination of
the Pakistani President all while Storm Shadow (back from the dead, though this
is never explained) frees Cobra Commander. Everyone is dead….everyone except
for Roadblock, Lady Jaye, Flint, and Snake Eyes (who is still off training). It
is up to them to clear the name of the Joes, get revenge for their fallen
brothers, and stop COBRA’s plans of world domination.
What it got right
This movie fixed everything that was wrong
with the first film. GI Joe: The Rise of
Cobra was a movie that I was, and very much am, a fan of, but in a way that’s
kind of despite itself. Visually and aesthetically the first GI Joe film was
all wrong. Weapons, vehicles, even the costumes were homogenized. With the
exception of Snake Eyes and Destro’s mask there was no visual landmark to know
you were in the same universe that occupied so much of our time as kids. Everything
new they tried (Cobra Commander’s mask for one) failed horribly, here’s looking
at you accelerator suits. Still, despite all of this, the movie was a blast.
Thankfully someone realized this misstep when making Retaliation and corrected the problem in a very fan friendly way.
There is still room for expansion and improvement but as part of the core
demographic I can say that I was very happy with the look of the film. Cobra
Commander is probably the greatest improvement and seems to have walked right
out of my 1988 Saturday morning cartoons. Not only did they pick his coolest
uniform (the mirrored face mask) but the managed to get his voice almost
perfect with the icing on the cake being the slight hiss added to his words.
Speaking of HISS there was a marked improvement in the vehicles this time
around as the notorious hallmark of COBRA transportation, the HISS tank, made its
way to the big screen with bonus points added for throwing in the COBRA fan
boats. There are still SO many more vehicles I’d love to see in the next film,
the JOE F-16 fighter jet, the COBRA one man helicopter or A-10 Warthog for
starters, but I will say that my hunger is satisfied this time around.
Jon Chu does a knock-out job with the direction. He seems to
have been a real fan of the source material and understands that sometimes you
need dramatic cheesiness to reach the sweet spot of a subject. This is
especially apparent with Cobra Commander who is always presented in this ¾ speed
upward angle shot that makes him look that much more dramatic when entering a
room. This coupled with his awesome new look makes for one sweet villain. The
ninja scenes are unquestionably awesome, it does suck that we have seen pretty
much all the movie has to offer, ninja wise, in the promo videos, but I’ll get
to the downside later. The mountaintop ninja battle is not to be missed with
some cartoonish over the top action that somehow manages to achieve complete believeability.
The real cherry of ninja action was not, as you’d probably think, Snake Eyes V
Storm Shadow 2 but rather Snake Eyes AND Storm Shadow vs. a room full of bad
guys. I’ll save the why and how for the movie but longtime fans of the series
know that Storm Shadow has a long “is he good or bad” soap opera worth history.
Not to be overlooked, The Rock, is in fine form here as the
de facto Joe leader, Roadblock. Honestly if a guy can be likeable while playing
the Tooth Fairy and go right back to action films without a step missed then
there really isn’t anything wrong he can do. I’m not sure there is anyone else
in Hollywood that could have held this movie together the way Johnson does, he
is literally the only aspect of the non-ninja part of the film that is worth
buying a ticket for, which leads me to….
What it got wrong
Yes this movie did a great job fixing everything that was
wrong with the first GI Joe film. Sadly, they forgot to remember all of the
things that were right and proceeded to screw up all of those facets instead.
The GI Joe’s are a large team of diverse individuals who are at the top of
their game. With this in mind let’s kill everyone except for The Rock and two
bland throw away characters. I don’t mean Flint and Lady Jaye of the
cartoons/comics. I mean the Adrienne Palicki/D.J. Cotrona versions of the
characters. It’s shocking how easily you could forget that Flint was even IN
this movie, the same would go for Lady Jaye if you remove two scenes of her in
skimpy clothing, which is ironic when you consider that GI Joe was one of the
first cartoons to show women as equals on the battlefield. The Rise of Cobra gave us a plethora of memorable characters that
were, for the genre, quite deep and fleshed out. I can tell you secondary
motivations for each main Joe from the first movie, all I can tell you about
the non-Rock Joes this time around is that one has daddy issues and the other
likes sneaking looks at girls changing via well placed mirrors. I’m amazed that
I actually long for the days of some good Channing Tatum/Marlon
Wayans back and forth. What little we get of Duke in this movie is downright
goofy. I’m not saying that action movies can’t have humor, we know they need
humor. What I’m saying is that if you want to show two characters are buddies
by having them joke around, you also need to show them being serious at some
point. This does not happen once during the Duke/Roadblock scenes. It’s almost
as if they thought they were writing 21
Jump Street 2: Drafted. I’m not
going to lie and say the total cast departure didn't bother me, it bothered me
big time. I get that maybe you couldn't get the cast back for the sequel, but
you’re not even going to attempt to explain where Ripcord, Scarlett and Heavy
Duty went? No mention of Hawk? I mean come on! Not only do you give them the
shaft and undermine any camaraderie you built in the first film, you cut off
any way for them to return in future movies by saying that all of the Joes were
killed….sure there is still a HUGE roster to choose from but these are some
major Joes that you are not getting back. I really feel that this plot line should have been saved for GI JOE 3: S.O.L.
 |
| Good thing I can't see how bad I am! |
Hey, at least we have some epic Ninja action to look forward
to, right? Sure, if you haven’t watched any of the trailers. Oh, you have?
Sorry then, you've seen pretty much all there is, all you've got left is a 20
second Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow team up that, while awesome, is not worth the
ticket price to see. Last thing on the ninjas…or really in martial arts movies
in general, is to the musical genius RZA. Look man, I know you’re a fan, I am
too…but stick to music, you are KILLING otherwise good martial arts flicks. This
may seem over the top but RZA’s hilariously bad take on Blind Master completely
ruins the ninja story-line of the movie. It goes from comically good to
comically bad in the time it takes RZA to say something profound in a muzzled Brooklyn
accent.
Other things that didn't work for me were Firefly as the
COBRA villain and, I can't believe I'm going to say this, the pacing of the story. So much time was spent on factors
that could have been skipped, when we get to the meat of the story (which was
actually a fairly genius world domination plot) everything is glossed over,
blown up, and resolved inside of 10 minutes without even so much as an epic
final fight. Cobra Commander can get away, that’s fine, but to have him slip
out without so much as a shot fired is a waste.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, I’m torn. Like I said they fix everything from the
first movie but manage to break everything that could have been carried over.
What your left with is a flashy throw away film that is good for little more
than some cool nostalgic ‘money shots’ and not much else. I hope they find a
way to revive that which this movie destroyed…if they can manage to take the
good parts from both GI Joe films and
discard the crap we may be in for perfect 80’s cartoon big screen adaptation.
Oh, and fans of the cartoon can answer this for me, is it too much to ask for
just ONE shot of someone’s vehicle being blown up and them jumping out at the
last second, preferably while said vehicle is inflamed?
2.5 out of 5 Guttenbergs
