Today’s quick review: G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Duke (Channing Tatum), Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), and the other soldiers of G.I. Joe are betrayed by their country when Cobra, an international terrorist organization, frames them for the theft of a nuclear device. After most of the Joes are slaughtered in an ambush, the few survivors set out to stop Cobra’s latest plan by unmasking the President (Jonathan Pryce) as an impostor.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation is an action movie that acts as a loose sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. With Cobra’s leadership in prison, their master of disguise Zartan (Jonathan Pryce) and ninja operative Storm Shadow (Byung-Hun Lee) initiate a contingency plan to wipe out the Joes and take control of the world. Like its predecessor, G.I. Joe: Retaliation delivers light, imaginative action, but it has a harder time keeping its world cohesive.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation succeeds at the basics of the genre. The premise of the movie serves it well. The Joes are stripped of their support structure and heavy weaponry, forcing them to use their wits and smaller weapons caches to take on Cobra at its most powerful. The action skews a little more conventional than the previous movie, with more traditional gunfights, but a few ninja fights and a handful of gadgets keep things varied.
However, G.I. Joe: Retaliation does not fit together as smoothly as the first movie. Dwayne Johnson, while a good pick in theory, does not fit in with the rest of the team and ends up taking focus away from them. The other Joes are bland and forgettable, as are two of the four villains. The plot is similarly disjointed, consisting of several mostly independent subplots that build up to a mediocre finale.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation works well as a popcorn action movie. Flashy action, a colorful setting, and a dash of star power gives it everything it needs to please action fans. But the movie does not take much care with its story, and it does not use its characters to their full potential. The result is a movie that avoids the worst excesses of The Rise of Cobra, but in doing so sacrifices a lot of what made the original movie unique.
For military-flavored action with a similar story setup, try The A-Team. For an action comedy with some of the same cast, try RED 2. For a more even-keeled action thriller, try any of the Mission: Impossible series.
[5.8 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1583421/). I give it a 6.5 for decent action with a mixed plot and some tonal inconsistencies.