There's a Reason They Call Them Joes: Retaliation

I am a guilty man. Not Operation Yew Tree guilty but certainly skimming the lines of good taste all the same. I, humble reader, enjoyed G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra. That's right I am an insurgent, a terrorist, a threat to good wholesome cinema and by god I will not apologise. It was fun, it was over the top and probably dumber than a bag of retarded cats, but it tickled that inner child (appropriately) with all it's techno ridiculousness and shiny explosions. It was before Channing Tatum even tried to act or Jason Gordon Levitt became a household name and for that we were gifted with the film equivalent of action crack. Cheap, nasty and oh-so satisfying. So when I heard there was to be a second outing for the Joes I was accordingly quite pleased. The withdrawal had become near terminal.  I almost watched a Van Damme movie.

But after sitting for the 110 minute runtime willing something interesting to happen I can safely say any and all previous excitement has been extinguished. This wasn't a G.I Joe movie and much like the new Star Trek films bears a brand, not a franchise. Gone are the exciting sonic weapons, the exo suits, the Pit and the majority of the original cast.  Instead we're left with a bunch of everyday soldiers who quite frankly have almost nothing of interest going for them. They're a special forces team with regular weapons and regular tactics. Sure we get to see a couple of bullets that can be guided round corners but it's all too grounded, as if the producers desperately wanted to prove that G.I Joe can be taken seriously after being savaged by the critics. But that doesn't work because, lets face it, G.I Joe is dumb. It's based on a toy line and really right there is enough said. Battleship and theTransformers franchise are two of the worst creations not only in cinema, but the history of language, art, literature, theatre and any other definable entertainment medium. And why dear reader do I not throw The Rise of Cobra on the bonfire as well? Because it had the common decency to do exactly what it said on the tin and not bullshit the viewer that we were watching a serious, dramatic action film. It was clear we were in it for the laughs, the lights and the explosions. Retaliation violated this sacred accord.

It suffered the Call of Duty effect. It came to believe that action was best expressed by contemporary militaries doing contemporary things with a hyperbolic story line thrown in to convince us fun was afoot. In CoD 3 the Russians invade America. In Retaliation Cobra seizes control of the US government by supplanting the president with an impostor. It sends the entire focus of the film into a tail dive, for on the one hand a terrorist organisation led by a toaster faced baddy has used high tech nannite equipment to replace the most powerful man on earth, but at the same time a couple of Green Berets led by the Rock are going to save the day? Talk about a juxtaposition. Now even if you can buy into this massive discrepancy and think maybe it'll have lots of cool explosions and set piece battles, you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. WMD wrong. For an "action" movie there is surprisingly little actioning going on, with the entire middle of the film meandering around the shocking revelation that the president isn't the president and how super evil Cobra is. There's also a plot focussed on Storm Shadow (a Cobra agent who was tricked into diabolical world machinations) but this hardly qualifies as Sherlock Holmes. If anything it's insultingly obvious. Even the 13 year olds in the audience could figure it out.

So having torn the film a new one maybe you're thinking this is the part when I say, "But at least it stars Bruce Willis." Surely any action film is immediately improved by none other than John Motherfucking McClane, hero of bald men everywhere and had he actually starred I might be saying that. He has about 20 minutes screen time, period. Far, far less than the trailer would lead us to believe and you come out feeling more than a little cheated. He was one of the main reasons I wanted to see the damned film, even mitigating my concern at the new, super real look with good old fashioned star power. Instead he appears briefly midway through the movie, buggers off and comes back for the under whelming showdown. Playing ex General Joe Colton he's supposed to be the creator of the G.I Joes, but we never get any exposition or an explanation of any kind. We really are supposed to just be impressed that Bruce Willis is Joe, a revelation which means nothing without any context. I would have killed to have General Hawk come riding in, declare the whole thing retconned and get back to fighting bad guys with Eiffel Tower eating missiles.

Hawk:  "That's right kids, it was all a horrible Cobra trick to convince you the studio are dumbasses."

Retaliation failed because it wanted to be something it wasn't. It wanted to be serious, a film that the critics wouldn't laugh at, a new and more respectable kind of G.I Joe. Whoever decided that whether it be Jon M. Chu, the writers or some suit they deserve pistol whipping. Preferably with one of those big Cobra rifles from the first film. You ruined a ridiculous premise with a need for vindication. You traded science fiction for the Rock. You destroyed your franchise not by making a commercial flop but by making a totally forgettable movie that while possibly spawning a third has no personality, no sense of fun. Retaliation deserves to be consigned to ignominy as a warning to every other studio out there that some films don't need a sequel, even if you're desperate to turn a buck. Rather that you should call a Channing Tatum movie a Channing Tatum movie and move on. Leaving those who despised the first to their fist shaking and we happy few who loved it to our drooling and much fuller wallets.