Official Synopsis
G.I. JOE team not only faces off against its mortal enemy COBRA, it is also forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize its very existence.
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If you saw the first Joe film then you understand how disjointed a G.I. Joe movie can get quickly when the source material isn’t fully understood. The first Joe movie seemed to be all over the place, as too many stars filled the screen, too many comic/cartoon/toy decisions were ignored, which kind of blocked out the fans from recognizing the material. It took Hollywood forever to understand that while the source material might be goofy from afar, it’s still better to stay true to it than to wander off into no man’s land and try to rebuild it from scratch (see Marvel for good examples of doing it the right way).
With a more restrictive storyline that starts where the first one ended, new director Jon M. Chu focused on a few key characters and storylines that fit the G.I. Joe mold far better than the first film. G.I. Joe Retaliation ditches most of the tech that overloaded the first film and goes back to the traditional G.I. Joe storytelling that made the comic/cartoon special to many fans over the years. We start off with two characters, Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) and Duke (Channing Tatum), who are going through the motions of bringing down a rogue enemy that is hellbent on threatening the world with a nuclear warhead. Unknown to them is that Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) is the one giving the orders for the Joe’s to strike and obtain, as he is impersonating the president of the United States. Once they obtain the warhead, things go wrong and the Joes’ are framed for ‘stealing’ the warhead, which leads to most of the team’s elimination.
So the story starts off with some tragedy and then shifts gear into revenge mode. In the meantime, Cobra is on the move to bring back Cobra Commander, sans Destro, and makes plans to threaten the world with nuclear war, if they don’t meet Cobras’ demands. Ladies and gentlemen, this is pure and simple G.I. Joe. As you can imagine, things go wrong, clues are uncovered and Cobras plans are in jeopardy thanks to the remaining Joes. I don’t want to give too much of the story away, so I’ll stop there.
The film is far superior to the first. The way the story was setup and structured screams G.I. Joe typical storyline from the 80s. This is what most of us have grown up to expect and, for the most part, G.I. Joe Retaliation delivers just that. Sadly, it goes too far with some storylines, such as the ninja/Storm Shadow/Snake Eyes portion of the film, and it becomes a disjointed piece that seems just a bit lost from the main body. At times during the film, you’ll jump around to another story arc (such as the one I just mentioned) and you won’t have a smooth bridge to it at all. You’ll wonder how you got to this part of the movie so quickly, as there will be little rhyme or reason for this part of the story to begin where it begins. The other issue with this is that when the writers do give you a reason for being there, sometimes it’s not always a good one — or one that even makes sense. It’s as if the writers/producer/director sat down and had all of these fantastic, cool moments that they wanted to include, which do pay homage to the 80s comics/cartoons, but they couldn’t find a good way to glue them together. Still, give them some points for trying.
Granted, some of the film is going to ask you to suspend, if not kill your disbelief. How Snake Eyes gets from A to B during the mountain scene is a bit baffling. Chu might have been better off pulling Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow’s fight/beef into a smaller story (kind of like an Agent Colson adventure) and including it on the final release (or even before the actual film as a short. As it stands, it sticks out like a sore thumb and it’s a good example of straying away from the main body of the story without giving much rhyme or reason, or even excuse of ‘how’ they got to this point. Again, I don’t want to give too much away, but this is how some of the pieces of the film felt.
Now, having said that, this movie is far more cohesive than the first. It relies on the characters to drive and make up the story as it goes, rather than depend on special effects and sci-fi tech. Roadblock is a certified badass in the comics/cartoons, and picking Dwayne Johnson to head this character up is brilliant. He’s interesting, demanding and just perfectly represents what fans have come to love and appreciate from the series. He is also a great example of how new/improved the film structure is with G.I. Joe Retaliation. He doesn’t do anything special (no special guns, no special vehicles, etc.) other than look badass and own the screen. He represents everything we love about the series, and brings that love to life onscreen. His other compadres (Flint and Lady Jaye — played by D.J. Cotrona and Adrianne Palicki) go along for the ride. This defines what we’re used to in the original series and this is how all the stories are driven — also, ridiculous contraptions that threaten the world help to motivate the story…and the film doesn’t disappoint in that area.
Anyway, G.I. Joe Retaliation simply feels more like a G.I. Joe story straight from the 80s than the first film. It concentrates on the characters, gives them a world-ending problem to solve and makes Cobra out to be vicious badasses. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s getting closer to what we really love about G.I. Joe. Hopefully the next one hits the nail right on the head.
(Reviewed in passive 3D)
As for the 3D portion of this release, it’s quite solid. There is a lot of depth to be had with the scenes that Chu and crew shot. One of the best 3D moments has to be the Snake Eyes/Jinx sword fight on the side of the mountain. Though completely CG, the appropriate depth and ‘fill-in’ for the background to foreground separation was particularly beautiful. You’ll feel like the mountain they’re swinging back and forth along is really there and, more importantly, very huge. There will be plenty of moments where you will physically move with how well the 3D is done. I haven’t avoided things in 3D since The Avengers release, so it was nice to see that the 3D was doing its job and wasn’t simply a gimmick to get more ticket sold.
Having said that, some of the 3D did get lost a little bit in translation. For example, Roadblock’s tank battle towards the end seemed a bit flat, as did his boat battle. There were a few scenes out there that seemed a bit less 3D-ish than others, but overall, I was happy with the 3D translation. It seemed to work much better than one would expect.
As for the Blu-ray portion of this transfer, it was a bag of mixed nuts. The daytime scenes were absolutely gorgeous, as you got some solid colors (yellows, reds, greens, blues) popping out of the screen in all their glory. The daytime and well-lit stuff was so detailed that you could count how many veins were popping out of Dwayne Johnson’s temples before he went in for his character’s kills. Very impressive stuff.
The downer of the HD transfer came with the darker scenes. I’m unsure if the abundance of CG’d sets did this in or just a real lack of good compression tools, but you could see graininess in nighttime and dark scenes. On top of that, color banding is in full swing for some of the outside night shots. For example, the Arlington Cemetery scene that was deleted has a lot of color banding present around the lights shining on the graves. Maybe the CG was fully implemented in this scene, but regardless some of the actual scenes that made it in the film had this issue (see the first big firefight for an example). I think this HD needed a bit more cleaning and better compression.
A really solid portion of this release was the features. Here’s what you’re getting:
· Commentary by director Jon M. Chu and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura
· Mission Briefing
· Deployment
· Two Ninjas
· The Desert Attack
· COBRA Strikes
· The Lone Soldiers
· The Monastery
· Fort Sumter
· Deleted Scenes
The magical part about special features is seeing the actors and crew’s true attitudes about the film they’r doing. For G.I. Joe Retaliation, you can tell that everyone had fun with this movie. I particularly liked the featurettes that broke down the entire film process and what they went through. It’s amazing that the entire film was done in New Orleans, as you can’t honestly tell that from the finished production at all. Anyway, expect some fantastic features that help elevate a middle-of-the-road film into something good. Paramount did a great job coordinating these features and including them with the Blu-ray release. Although, there’s a good reason why the deleted scenes were deleted. I’ll end with that.
