GI Joe: Retaliation
GI Joe Rise of the Cobra..I remember walking into a movie theater in my youth and staring at the fruits of Hollywood pulling down it's pants and shitting all over my childhood Toy Collection. I sat through as much of that movie as I could bear and walked out of the theater. I would debate with people about how bad the movie is. I would ask fans how old they were and get responses like "17" or "19" and I would want to punch the poor children in the head because of their ignorance. But now...A sequel was made and now, because of you guys, I have to watch that movie. I have to punish myself because I sat in a movie theater and realized that these fools weren't rebooting GI JOE, they are making a freaking SEQUEL. My integrity won't allow me to just quickly rate that movie without watching the rest of it so readers...be ready for the review of THAT movie. So how did the sequel hold up? Was the Rock able to save this poorly started franchise or will the Retaliation be an Epic Fail?
Cast and Crew
Jon M Chu. I have to say, I don't know i it was studio pressure or Chu's choice of casting but for an Korean American Director, I am surprised how many GI JOE Characters were White Washed. The Cast is still impressive with Dwayne , The Rock Johnson as leading character playing, Roadblock. His two man team of Joe's, Lady Jaye and Bland Nobody guy played by, Adrienne Palicki, and D.J. Contora are fine for what they are.
The REAL Stars of this movie are the Villains! Jonathan Pryce just eats his role up as The President and Zartan. (Yes, I said he plays Zartan Arnold Vosloo, sit down, you were the Face of Zartan fool) Pryce is obviously digging his role in this film and it works so well when he is on screen. Byung-hun Lee is fun to watch as Storm Shadow with his dark attitude and flashy fight sequences. And Luke Bracey...the Commando I always remenbered. Although Pryce stole the show, The Cobra was definitely nastolgic to see on stage.
Story
The best way to describe this story is that its safe. I understand that they had to play it safe if they wanted to make some green on this movie. the first installment is terrible. This is a typical story about the good guy getting set up and having to go rouge. We have seen the story a thousand times. The Joes are introduced as the movie opens. We get to see the falsely advertised Channing Tatum, who enjoyed a good 39 seconds of screen time.(Honestly, false advertisement ...I had two 'Magic Mike' Fan Girls with me that were quite pissed at the theater!) as Duke, the squad leader of the JOEs. He has a close relationship with Roadblock and the friendship really makes for some fun dialogue in the opening Act. However, the Cobra set up the JOE.s and annihilate the group killing most of the better actors from the first act. Thus leaving Roadblock alone with two Actors that would be killed off in a scary movie...making you wish that this were a scary movie. Road block has to get his team together and Rise up against the evils set before him.
The story is saved by the story of the Cobra. They have their own agenda and you will be thoroughly entertained by it. The Cobra embark on a quest to take over the world and fight of Snake Eyes, the only JOE They couldn't catch.THIS movie should have been called Rise of the Cobra...Witch is what makes me feel that Chu intended to shoot this movie as a Reboot and Hasbro Toys Executives stepped in to shut that down. They thought it would be more profitable to make this a Sequel so the critics like me would be forced to buy that other shitty movie and watch it. But the story is fine and it is muuuuuch better than the first instalment
Presentation
The Story may not be that great and the script may have been incredibly silly. But for some reason the way this movie is presented just has a charm that wont disappoint you after you are done with the film.The action really hits and makes up for a lot of the movies obvious flaws.
However I cannot be too forgiving to this movie. The director made some poor choices in dialogue, and just core story sets. Spoiler Alert ....Spoiler Alert Skip a paragraph if you intend to watch this movie: If you watch the trailer, you see a Nuking that takes out a huge city. You would expect that scene to mean something to the story. I mean the way I looked at it, if the Cobra succeeded in taking out millions they kinda won the fight. But after that bombing. The JOEs come in, kick ass, and the movie ends. No one even mentions the millions of people that die it was as if the scene never even happened. That shit is just sloppy writing!
The Rating
I will be Straight with you .If you are one of those viewers that are able to turn off your sense of reality while watching action movies your shouldn't have a problem watching GI JOE: Retaliation. If you really want to enjoy it, sit through the first movie right before watching it and you should LOVE this one. I didn't do that because I wanted to avoid making the Contrast Error, and over rate this movie. I feel there could have been more done to save this movie. It was okay but I cannot call it a GOOD movie even though I enjoyed some scenes. I would have to say that GI JOE Retaliation may not be FOUL, but it definitely
Needs More Seasoning
1 comment:
I agree .. I think that this should've been the 1st movie. They really should have put this much effort into the first one. Smh.. well at least they are getting better and not worse.
Post a Comment