G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

I generally don’t care much what a movie is based on. It can be a book, a videogame or in this case on action figures. The source really doesn’t say anything about what the movie will be. Although I can hardly remember anything about the original G.I. Joe movie except for two guys jumping through either a bus or subway, I quite enjoyed it. When growing up I never played with G.I. Joe (which are called Action Man over in Europe I think), I was more into He-Man and Bravestar, so I don’t have any affinity with any of the figures/characters. Going into the movie I was expecting a dumb but entertaining action movie. Does Retaliation offer that?

The G.I. Joe’s are the elite team of the United States, but here their very existence is under threat. It’s up to a couple of them to find out where that threat comes from and do something against it. The team, lead by Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), consists of various experts, including Snake Eyes (who plays him doesn’t really matter as you never see his faces and he doesn’s speak either), Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) and Duke (Channing Tatum). Even John McClane (yeah, he’s called something different but since the last Die Hard showed that it doesn’t take the character serious anymore anyway I’ll just call him that) shows up to the party.

This movie was supposed to have come out some months ago, but was delayed because of a post conversion to 3D (and rumours are it was also to give Tatum a bigger role). Now I have never been a fan of 3D, but I hate it with a passion when it is used in action movies and the 3D wasn’t taken into account when shooting/editing it. Everything needs to move a bit slower in order for your eyes to focus on things. That’s not the case here, which meant to me that I found those action scenes not as immersive as the might have been in 2D. The 3D really didn’t add anything and if could have seen it without the extra dimension I would.

This is not the only issue I have with the movie though. I always felt it was taking itself way too serious and because of that I never felt that there was chemistry between the characters and made some characters stand out (in a negative way). One of the biggest ones to me was RZA as Blind Master, who really distracted me and never felt like he belonged in the film. Dwayne Johnson almost plays the same role as he did in the last Fast & Furious movie, but he was more entertaining to watch in that movie. Bruce Willis was in the movie, but very underused (appearing in 3 or 4 scenes) and the jokes never made the audience I watched it with laugh. There is one scene where there is a fight between ninjas on the side of a cliff, which is almost like something out of Cirque du Soleil, but something which, because of CGI, never feels very threatening. I’ve seen this done way better (and more realistic) in the recent The Thieves.

The movie offers enough action to keep the kids who still play with G.I.Joe entertained, but if you don’t belong to that category anymore the chances are you will be let down. I know I was.