No matter how many times Paramount Pictures tries in vain to throw around words like “foreign market sales” and “technically a financial success in the loosest sense of the word”, “G.I Joe: The Rise Of Cobra” wasn’t very good. It was a bland, watered down product that catered to the lowest common denominator and traded good storytelling for badly shopped in CGI that was considered too cheap for “Transformers.” However, thanks to the foreign market gross being great enough to turn a profit, a sequel was quickly green lit.
“Retaliation” picks up where that movie you barely remember left off; Cobra Commander (now played by Luke Bracey but voiced awesomely by Robert Baker) is in prison, The Commander’s right hand spy Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) has impersonated the president of the United States ( Jonathan Pryce who surprisingly steals the show), and nanobots still don’t work that way. But thankfully, the film doesn’t linger on the past film’s many shortcomings for too long and kicks the plot off in a new direction by promptly terminating all the nameless Joes you didn’t care about in the first place; leaving you with the infinitely more likeable Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) and Flint (D.J Cotrona). Sorry ladies, Channing Tatum eats it pretty early on, but he does stick around long enough to give you a wink and a smile. With the Joes framed for treason and declared dead by their own government, they must go underground, regroup, and yes, retaliate before Cobra Commander and the false president plunge the world into a nuclear dystopia.
The plot is silly but works well with its own established logic. The stakes are made high, the action comes fast and furious, and the heroes and villains alike have got all their best quips memorized.
But the biggest surprise strength of “Retaliation” is the charisma of its characters. Even the surely Bruce Willis (playing the original Joe, General Joseph Colton) sounds like he’s having a blast. With the cast so damn adamant about having a good time fighting snake themed terrorists, they win you over to stop trying to work out the logistics of exploding motorbikes and start having fun. “Retaliation” plays out exactly like a live action version of the cartoon from the 80s, complete with larger-than-life characters, cheesy dialogue and a suspiciously large amount of ninjas. And the movie is made all the better for it.
John Chu cracked the formula of making a property like G.I Joe work perfectly on the big screen. Turns out proudly embracing the silliness of the premise is half the battle.
