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G.I. Joe: Retaliation is kind of a strange sequel. It kind of half reboots the franchise with new characters, but also acts as a true sequel to Rise of Cobra. Rise of Cobra had some OBVIOUS flaws that fans didn’t like, such as Cobra Commander’s horrible mask at the end, the sloppy “Yo Joe!” lines throughout, and Marlon Wayans. Jon M. Chu took Stephen Sommer’s cheeky summer blockbuster, amped it up to 11 with The Rock, and made a slightly more G.I. Joe esque film that still doesn’t QUITE hit the mark. But at the end of the day is still a fun summer popcorn movie.
Cobra Commander and Destro are locked up and behind bars, but as we saw at the end of The Rise of Cobra, Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) posing as the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce) with his nanotech abilities. He’s working at getting the other nations into a stalemate where they are forced to destroy their nuclear weapons. Not so that we can live at peace, but so that he can break out Cobra Commander and they can rule the world with their high tech weapons satellites known as “Zeus”.
Zartan (as the President) sets off an assassination of the Pakistan president, killing off Duke and leaving only a handful of the Joes alive in order to kick start his initiative. Framing the Joes for the attack, Zartan disavows them and lets the world know who they are. Now only a few Joes are left, including Snake Eyes (Ray Park), Roadblock (The Rock), Flint (Dr. Corona), and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki). Together they have to band together with Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) to take down Cobra Commander and Zartan before the two take over the world.
The fight scenes are a lot better done, and make the film feel bigger than it really is. The mountain fortress fight with Stormshadow, Jinx and Snake Eyes is incredible, and probably the highlight of the film, but that final assault on Cobra Commander’s stronghold is nothing to sneeze at. I liked the little things that they did with the movie too. Cobra Commander actually looks and acts like Cobra Commander (instead of a off ex soldier) and his helmet is a nice nod to the originals (my goodness, that helmet from the first movie’s reveal was hilarious). Snake Eyes got rid of that stupid plastic lips on his helmet, and once again, he and Storm Shadow are the biggest hits of the movie. That’s not to say that the Rock wasn’t a massive draw, as he really was. Back in 2014 he was THE go to guy for an action movie, and while he’s fun, he’s also just “The Rock” in a G.I. Joe movie instead of molding into the character of Roadblock. That being said, this is big, this is dumb, but it’s TOTALLY a blast and I enjoyed it way more than The Rise of Cobra. It’s still one of my go to popcorn flicks and for good reason. The one thing that actually bugged me (and a lot of fans) was killing off of Duke. Usually they kill off a character like that offscreen, or just write him out, but they actually KILLED him off on screen, one of the franchise's most popular characters! I had forgotten about it till now, but it was actually at the request of Channing himself, who agreed to be in the film to pass the torch as long as the producers killed him off, because he didn't want to be shackled to the franchise. Not sure whether I agree with his decision, but it's too late to be crying about spilled milk.
Rated PG-13 for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout
4K Video: Video:
Audio:
Extras:
• G.I. JOE: Declassified
-- Mission Briefing
-- Deployment
-- Two Ninjas
-- The Desert Attack
-- COBRA Strikes
-- The Lone Soldiers
-- The Monastery
-- Fort Sumter
• Deleted Scenes
Final Score:
Retaliation is a fun popcorn movie that isn’t closer to an ACTUAL G.I. Joe film than The Rise of Cobra was, but is much more entertaining at least. It’s a big dumb action movie that has the Rock in it, and lots of explosions. Also it happens to be one of the last movies that Bruce Willis actually gave a care about expending any effort in before he went the Steven Seagal route of DTV garbage. The 4K UHD transfer is really a lateral transfer from the Blu-ray so I hesitate to tell anyone to upgrade, but it’s still a fun movie.
Technical Specifications:
Starring: Channing Tatum, Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, Byung-hun Lee, Jonathan Pryce, Elodie yung, Ray Stevenson, Ray Park
Directed by: Jon Chu
Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, German, Spanish, French, French (Candadian, Spanish (Latin), Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Thai
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 110 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 20th 2021
Recommendation: Fun Watch