Movie Review: G.I Joe: Retaliation

The G.I Joe's are back hoo-rah! Much like the 2009 original, G.I Joe Retaliation offers up plenty of cheap kinetic thrills. This installment sees almost a complete overhaul of the cast with only Channing Tatum, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce and Byung-Hun Lee returning from the first film. The new additions to the cast make the film's high-octane absurdity flow a lot better. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is a lot more convincing and just plain better of a hero than Tatum was in the original. Johnson is one of the torchbearers for modern action stars. He just understands what it takes to drive an action movie and always elevates what ever material is thrown at him. The new additions to the supporting cast including Adrianne Palecki, D.J Catrona and of course, Bruce Willis all pull their respective weight. Willis especially kills it as the namesake for the G.I Joe squad, who is now retired. Willis has his signature smirk and wise-ass one-liners out in full force and the time he is on screen are amongst the most enjoyable of the whole film. His 20 minutes of screen time here is substantially more enjoyable than the entirety of Willis's last big screen appearance last month in the monumental letdown otherwise known as A Good Day to Die Hard. Of course the most important element to a movie like G.I Joe Retaliation is the action and it delivers the goods in that department. You got everything from giant shootouts in Washington D.C to ninja sword battles on the side of mountains in the Himalayas all captured with unapologetically absurd glee. Director Jon Chu does an excellent job executing the big and bold action scenes with a nice combination of slo-mo and fast-paced action sequences. This is the first action film he's ever done and he has a good feel for the large-scale set pieces blockbuster action films offer up. So with the improved cast and great action sequences you would think you would have an improvement over its predecessor? Not exactly. The one knock I have on Retaliation is how seriously it takes itself sometimes. Rise of the Cobra did not have one serious bone in it's explosion-filled body, it was just ridiculous fun for two hours. Don't get me wrong Retaliation is also plenty of fun, there are just times where it takes itself way too seriously when offering up bad dialogue and overly-dramatic situations (mostly the scenes with just the villains talking amongst themselves and the cringe-inducing sequences with RZA as ninja prophet Blind Master suffer from this problem.) It's a G.I Joe movie, don't try to overact and take away from the mindless fun the rest of the film offers up. G.I Joe Retaliation is a competent action flick with a strong cast that brings summer thrills a few months early.

3.5/5 Stars