THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was a Hasbro production that hasn’t aged well. Despite not impressing critics, it’s box office success gave us a sequel that was just plain worse.
PLOT
The 2013 follow up Retaliation takes place after ‘Nanomite War’ in which Conrad ‘Duke’ Hauser and the GI Joe led to victory. Since than, he has led a new team of Joes: ninja Snake Eyes (Ray Park), second in command & heavy machine gunner Marvin ‘Roadblock’ Hinton, counterintelligence officer ‘Lady Jaye’ Burnett (Adrianne Palicki) and sniper Dashiell ‘Flint’ Faireborn (Donald Joseph ‘DJ’ Cotrona). Duke’s team is assigned to retrieve nuclear warheads in Pakistan before they go missing. However, Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) under the disguise of the United States President frames the Joes for stealing the warheads. When he publicly announces it, the crime syndicate he works for, Cobra, becomes the new premier US Special Forces team. Storm Shadow (Byung Hun Lee) is than revealed to survive his duel against Snake Eyes in the Arctic Cobra base. He takes the disguise of his rival and takes the blame of assassinating the Pakistani President. This benefits him because Cobra gains more trust to the public and he gets transferred to the same prison that holds Cobra Commander and Destro. With help of fellow Cobra agent Firefly (Ray Stevenson), the Commander is broken free and Destro is left behind. The real Snake Eyes watches afar to track Storm Shadow, in order to ensure he pays for killing their master long ago. A military strike ordered by Zartan attacks Duke’s team and the only members that remain are Roadblock, Jaye and Flint. When they set up a base of operations in a rundown gym where Roadblock grew up in, there is certainty that their President is setting them up because someone is impersonating him. The only Joe they can trust other than Snake Eyes is the founder himself, Joseph Colton, who remains retired but provides an unlimited amount of weaponry. Jaye sneaks into a fundraising event to collect a sample from their imposter, but they get compromised when briefly encountering Firefly and Havoc (Matt Gerald), a Cobra agent that’s undercover as the head US Secret Service Presidential Detail. Snake Eyes & his apprentice Jinx (Elodie Yung) find Storm Shadow in the Himalayas and take him to Japan so he can pay for his crime. He gets the chance to explain himself by revealing that it was Zartan that killed his master, not him. His proof is that is his sword is unbreakable, while the sword that was used to kill the master wasn’t. With amends made, the ninjas meet up with the Joes to figure out how to stop Cobra’s next scheme. Based on Storm Shadow’s knowledge, Zartan will summon Project Zeus: orbital kinetic bombardment weapons of mass destruction at his command. He moves forward with this after forcing other world leaders to launch all of their arsenal and warheads. After this, he shows off the destruction of Project Zeus by destroying London, in order to have all submit to Cobra. As that happens, the Joes’ mission begins: Storm Shadow betrays Cobra Commander by killing Zartan. Flint, Snake Eyes and Jinx fight off Cobra soldiers, causing the Commander to flee and activate the remaining warheads of Project Zeus. Roadblock kills Firefly and destroys the weapons after deactivating them. Joe and Jaye rescue the President and kill Zandar. After the success of the mission, the real President is placed in back in power, commemorates the Joes arhat saved him and reinstates G.I. Joe as America’s main protective unit. Joe gives personal thanks to those he fought alongside with. When he gets to Roadblock, he hands him the pistol that formerly belonged to George S. Patton. The film ends with Roadblock shooting it in the air, vowing to find Cobra Commander and avenge the fallen Joes.
THOUGHTS
As a kid, I had hope that this would be somewhat entertaining as the first one if not more. So by the time I got to see this in theaters in 2013, this is another example where looking cool doesn’t define or save the quality. Rather than being better, director Jon M. Chu sadly made a much worse of a film. I’m blown away he got to make better movies after this dump. You’re throwing away every opportunity that was first provided to create new ones and it doesn’t work at all. You get rid of most of the original cast to bring us new characters, which is the biggest backfire because we don’t get any time to earn connecting with them. Channing Tatum’s Duke was the best character from the first film and when they decide to kill him off, that was the final nail in the coffin to confirm things were downhill. I got nothing against Dwayne Johnson or Bruce Willis because they are usually good/great as action stars. But no matter how badass they make their characters Roadblock or Joe Colton look, they’re not enough to improve quality. The one casting I don’t think worked at all was RZA as the Blind Master. He is only part of this because he is a fan of Kung fu/martial arts, hence the name of his rap group ‘Wu Tang Clan’. I don’t care how much make up he has to look older, he still doesn’t look the part. The biggest gripe of many that I’ll say is how the rivalry of Snake Eyes & Storm Shadow gets completely ruined here. Redeeming one of the most iconic villains is ridiculous because it doesn’t feel earned. I don’t think it is because he gave no signs of regret of his actions to sympathize for him. So when he killed Zartan, I really didn’t care. Plus, you’re just half-assing it when you say Zartan was responsible. The only actor I honestly enjoyed was Jonathan Pryce. Two face performances are always challenging and I believe Pryce played it off very well. Name one villain that calmly play Angry Birds on the phone after destroying London. Going from the psychotic Zartan to the innocent US President was convincing in my end. If I’m gonna give positive credit to anything else, I think Robert Baker had a much more menacing voice than Joseph Gordon Levitt when it comes to the voice of Cobra Commander. As I return to all the cons, there is so much stupid shit in this movie that is driving me crazy. First off, why the hell were the Joes shooting near the thermonuclear weapon in the first act? Nobody wins if both groups get killed in an explosion they would cause on accident. It’s plain stupid because they are nowhere near as stealth from the first mission beforehand or Duke’s escort from the first movie. The Joes even use weapons once and are never shown again, which is a repeated problem from the predecessor. The remote control bullet and the palm warming wire cutters look so cool until they’re never seen again. Cobra even has a drone that can pick up people’s voiceprints, yet can’t pinpoint locations. I mean talk about design flaws. Had it been able to do that, they would’ve found the Joes walking in fucking public. The weirdest thing Zartan does is not maintain the lie by saying he puts the Joes on trial before he had Cobra put them down. If that was said, that would sound more trustworthy to the public. It even blows my mind how no one questions his identity when according to Jaye, he started publicly saying ‘pop’ instead of ‘soda’. What I don’t understand is how Storm Shadow is never unmasked until he is reached to the prison. Not one guard was interested in seeing the identity of Snake Eyes? Talk about bullshit. On top of that, why does Storm Shadow have a security camera in his own cell helmet? It’s not like he or Walton Goggins’ Warden Nigel would program it because one wouldn’t have the time and the other wouldn’t find a reason to somehow taunt. To go any further, how is it that Roadblock got recruited from his neighborhood yet Duke wasn’t recruited after already being established as an elite soldier? The layers of confusion couldn’t get any higher. I can admit that the Himalayas battle is an awesome fight sequence, but I can’t buy that Storm Shadow can put up a fight with Snake Eyes after barely recovering from his wounds. I don’t care if he recovered from advanced tech, his former brother in arms has beaten him before and it should’ve been easy fight for him. I scream ‘Bullshit’ to the fact that Firefly was able to escape in his motorcycle when he got ran over by a van. That guy should’ve been cuffed by the instant he hit the ground. And lastly, Cobra Commander chooses to let Firefly take the case rather than protect it himself. Since he got away, that would’ve been a genius thing to do and he chooses to not think of that. Yet he looks down on Destro like he’s the idiot. To get this over with, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a sequel that should’ve not existed. I don’t care if the predecessor had a cliffhanger, this story should’ve been scrapped and we should’ve waited much longer until a better script was made. I don’t care if you like The Rise of Cobra or not, skip this and watch the Snake Eyes spin-off, a much better film than this garbage.
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