First Impressions: G. I. Joe: Retaliation

I saw this a few days ago in 3-D. While 3-D wasn't my first choice (I just missed the 2-D version), I paid the extra $2.50 for a matinee.

First – there was the IM3 trailer…in 3-D…THAT was cool.

As for the film itself, I liked it. There wasn't too much Magic Mike in there, and the overall plot didn't change from what I read last year when this movie was supposed to come out.

There’s three stories, presented here as spoiler free as possible:

1) The Joes capture a nuclear warhead, get demolished, and regroup.

2) Snake-Eyes and Jinx (also a cool character, but one I know less about) go after Storm-Shadow.

3) Zartan impersonates the President and with Cobra Commander and Firefly works on eliminating all nuclear weapons on Earth to put something even more dangerous in play.

Far and away, the stealer of this film was Byung-hun Lee, who played Storm Shadow. He owned that role and took every scene he was in.

Snake-Eyes is always cool to see too, but the remaining Joes look pretty much like any other military team. There’s no cohesion. Yeah, they all work for the same country, but they don’t look like they’re on the same team.

I understand that the costumes from the comics and action figures can’t directly translate to film, but one of the challenges in making movies like this is that fans see something recognizable, like giving Flint his beret, or having Lady Jaye with short hair. She looked more like Cover Girl to me. At least they gave Roadblock his gun…

I will say that Cobra Commander looked like Cobra Commander, and Storm Shadow came fresh out of the box. As for Firefly, he’s another character I don’t know well, so I honestly can’t tell how true-to-the-source he was.

But my biggest complaint has to be the ending. I got the message they were sending, but would it have hurt anyone to add another five minutes to the film as the Joes start looking for more members? Like Shipwreck? Torpedo? Wild Bill? Dusty? Footloose? Gung-Ho? Beachhead? Cover Girl? Or maybe…I don’t know…Scarlett?

As for the actors (aside from Lee), they did a good job with what they had. Bruce Willis will always be cool. D. J. Cotrona and Adrianne Palicki did get to play a little with the relationship history between Flint and Lady Jaye. Dwayne Johnson kicked it as Roadblock, and while Ray Stevenson will always be Volstagg to me, he did a good job as well.

All in all, a good matinee and will most likely show up on my Blu-ray shelf at some point. A far cry better than the first film, and (I hope) the beginning of another film franchise.