G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) - Movie Review

All right, kids.  Remember to drink your teeth, stay in drugs, and don't do milk! Knowing is half the battle...

It's kind of hard to take a movie seriously based on a series of toys and cartoons, let alone an unnecessary sequel to one.  G.I. Joe: Retaliation is not a movie set in our universe, but an alternate one where a regular military doesn't exist, ninjas wear white and bright red, and everyone speaks in bad puns.

This review is going to be spoiler-filled, so be warned...

Some of you may remember that G.I. Joe: Retaliation was originally scheduled to come out back in June, but just a few weeks before its release, it was announced it was being pushed back to March.  The reason given was that they were going to do a 3D conversion.  I've heard many rumors that the real reasons varied from the studio understanding it wouldn't make as much money competing against the bigger, summer films, where it would do better in March (a much weaker month for action movies).  One of the more popular rumors I heard was that due to Channing Tatum's increased popularity, they wanted to go back and shoot more scenes with him to capitalize on his stardom.  I'm guessing there some truth behind all of this based on what I saw on screen.

As far as converted 3D goes, it actually wasn't that bad.  Maybe they are finally starting to get the hang of post-3D conversion. I did see this in RPX again, so that may have had something to do with the quality.  Also, there were a few scenes with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Tatum that felt like they were shot way after the fact.  Their scenes together, while trying to establish their friendship, seemed tonally opposite from the rest of the film and really out of place. These scenes also managed to not have any of the rest of the cast in them, which further reinforced my belief that they were pickup shots done recently to have more Tatum in the film.

While I've lightened up on Tatum, these scenes really did show me how miscast he was.  I just couldn't buy him as someone that had military training, and he still has problems with enunciating.  On the other hand, I came away from their scenes (and the rest of the film) thinking that Dwayne Johnson really needs another action film that is worthy of his charisma and physical abilities.  He truly deserves a vehicle to showcase him in an action film that puts him up there with the all-time action stars. Don't get me wrong, Johnson is the real star of Retaliation, but it wasn't made strictly with him in mind.

The good thing I will say about Retaliation is that it's definitely action packed.  I was never bored, and there are some great sequences.  The action is a bit of a mixed bag though, as there are lots of scenes that seemed to suffer from Micheal Bay-ism where you just couldn't tell what was going on or where anyone was at any point in the scene.  There were some fights that had too much of that damn handheld, shaky camera work, coupled with quick cuts.  I can't believe this is a trend that continues, when I don't know anyone that likes films that use this.

The bad part of Retaliation is just about everything else related to the plot.  The whole story was laughable to the point where I actually did laugh out loud several times at how stupid some of it was.  The movie has a ton of exposition, starting with introducing you to the characters in about the most ham-fisted way you could do it during the opening credits.  It was like how an old, 80's TV show (like the A-Team) would introduce characters.  Like I said before, G.I. Joe is set in it's own universe, but they aren't even consistent with it throughout the film, let alone the previous one.  They didn't even bother to mention what happened to all the other Joe's from the first film. Did they all die? Are they retired?  At least they had the good sense to get rid of that stupid power armor, and Snake Eyes (Ray Park) doesn't have a mouth anymore.  Retaliation burns through nearly every action movie cliche there is. It's as if writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were playing Mad Libs for action movies, or pulling random plot threads out of a hat.

The main plot is that it's revealed early on that Zartan, the master of disguise, has taken the President's (Jonathan Pryce) identity.  I thought it was funny that he was only referred to as "President" in the credits.  They didn't bother to even give the President a name.  Anyway, Zartan, acting as the President, launches some crazy plan to kill the Joe's off and frame them as villains while freeing Cobra Commander from some totally over-the-top elaborate prison that only housed only him and Destro. I guess maximum security wasn't maximum enough for two people with no discernible super powers.  It's not like they had Magneto and Darth Vader locked up.  They break Cobra Commander out, and for some reason decide to totally abandon Destro, with absolutely no explanation as to why.  This will likely disappoint G.I. Joe fans, as Destro's kind of an important part of Cobra, and they decide to just completely blow off his character.

Only Roadblock (who wants a body massage?), Flint (D.J. Cotrona), and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) survive the attack, and it's up to them to figure out what's going on.  This part was kind of hilarious as they have puzzled together that someone must be impersonating the President, but do not just leap to the conclusion that Zartan is likely the person behind it.  They go to great lengths to prove it's Zartan, and act surprised when they confirm it.  It's as if they completely forgot about his existence, despite their previous encounters with him.  Do the Joe's not keep a database of bad guys and people they've fought against, or are they all just going from their shitty, collective memories?

But then, we transition to completely different film, where the RZA plays a ridiculous, martial-arts character, and I guess he was somehow Snake Eyes' master, or something.  Snake Eyes is training Storm Shadow's (Byung-hun Lee) sister, Jinx (Elodie Yung).  It's interesting to note that she speaks with a vaguely European accent despite that her brother is Korean.  I guess they had different parents and grew up in different parts of the world?  The two of them track down Storm Shadow (who only wears white, the most advantageous color for a ninja), and then there's some subplot about Storm Shadow's true origin.

The remaining Joe's enlist the aid of General Joe Colton (Bruce Willis), who's the original G.I. Joe, and then they all hatch some undefined plan to rescue the President and stop Cobra, who's true plan isn't really revealed until like the final 20 minutes of the film.  Their plan didn't make sense to me at all, but it involved several satellites (that Cobra somehow got into orbit without anyone noticing) that fire some rod that somehow does more damage than a regular nuke because it's 'dropped'.  Hey, I didn't write this crap.

This is a big spoiler, but it all climaxes with one of the most ridiculously hilarious endings I've seen in a while.  They actually went with the whole "hit the abort button just as the countdown reaches zero" trope.  Only when the abort button is hit, it magically causes all of the satellites to simultaneously explode.  Cobra designed these satellites with an abort function that also destroys the satellite?  Do they also drive specially designed cars that blow up when they kill the ignition?

I can't believe that director Jon M. Chu didn't stop at any point while making this film and questioned whether or not it made any sense.  Based on all the different plot threads and inconsistencies with tone, I don't think Chu could even settle on the kind of movie he was trying to me.  Were there any attempts to bring in a script doctor to fix some of the glaring plot holes and horrible dialog?  Look, I know it's a movie based off a toy, but that doesn't mean it can't have a plot that is consistent or has some kind of logic behind it.  I can forgive a certain amount of stupidity in my action films, but only up to a point.

Outside of Tatum and RZA (who was really, really miscast), I actually didn't mind the rest of the cast.  Bruce Willis appeared to be phoning it in again, but he's really not in it that much, so whatever.  I thought Adrianne Palicki was actually a bright spot, and I think the fact that she's a taller actress worked for her here.  I thought Ray Stevenson as Firefly was having a good time. He's another actor I wish would get more roles worthy of his talent.  Walton Goggins has a small role in this for some reason, and he clearly deserves better.  There's even a cameo from James Carville.

While G.I. Joe: Retaliation has some loud, fun action, and further proves that Dwayne Johnson needs to be a bigger action star, it's simply a really, really dumb film.  There's a small part of me that still enjoyed it, but I can only hope I've lowered your expectations enough so that if you do go see it, you'll benefit from that.  This is a rental, and now you know...

2 (out of 5) Death Stars

Red Dawn (2012) - Movie Review

Um...Wolverines?

Believe it or not, until this week I had never seen the original Red Dawn before.  I know the movie is heavily quoted and there's a lot of nostalgia for it, but I was never all that interested in going back and watching it.  I knew I was going to see the remake though, so I streamed it on Amazon the other day just so it would be fresh in my mind when watching the remake.

After watching this new Red Dawn, I felt that it only had a few similarities to the original and that it's yet another totally unnecessary remake that doesn't really live up to the original.  Hollywood, you have to stop this.  There's no point to doing a remake of a beloved film if you aren't going to do something really great with it, or address the weaknesses of the original.  The changes made here actually made the original film seem more realistic.

The basic story is still the same, only this time it's North Koreans that invade a small town.  As the occupation commences, a group of teens, led by Marine Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth) form a a resistance force and fight back.  They still call themselves "Wolverines".  That much hasn't changed.

One thing that hurt the film was how rushed it all felt.  This is almost a half hour shorter than the original, so details are totally glossed over.  I don't recall hearing any mention of what town they were in until almost two-thirds of the way through the movie.  There's no explanation of how the North Koreans were able to overwhelm us and the extent of the invasion until about that time as well.  So, you're watching the whole film wondering where they are and how this happened.  Plus, it's never even stated what the North Koreans want or what their goal is.

This was the directorial debut of Dan Bradley and it feels like a first effort.  The script from Carl Ellsworth and Jeremy Passmore is to blame as well.  The lapses in the movie's logic is hard to get around.  The original was written by John Milius, who wrote movies like Apocalypse Now and Conan the Barbarian (also the original one).  These guys have written stuff like Disturbia and The Last House on the Left.  There's no comparison between the writing teams.

There's little to no character development.  You follow the same group of kids the entire movie and outside of Jed and his younger brother Matt (Josh Peck), you know almost nothing about any of these people, so we aren't given much to care about.  Matt's character in particular was the perfect example of having a someone you hate throughout the film, yet he's one of the good guys.  He's arrogant, selfish and impulsive, and his reaction to conflict is to either disappear or to ignore them. We're supposed to care about his growth, but you spend the movie hoping someone kicks his ass. Even members of the Wolverines didn't seem to have any emotion regarding their friends, and were relatively unfazed when someone got killed.  Another annoyance was that all the non-white characters are the first to die.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the remake is that the villains were changed to North Koreans.  I heard they originally planned to make them Chinese, but then were worried about the Chinese market, so switched it.  The problem is that are we really all that afraid of North Korea?  Do they actually have enough of an army to somehow overwhelm our entire military forces in a short period of time?  The original Red Dawn worked because it came out during the height of the Cold War, when there was genuine fear of nuclear war with the Russians.  You never feel any real threat from the North Koreans, and there nothing menacing about their leader (Will Yun Lee).  When a small group of kids doesn't seem to have any trouble causing havoc, how am I supposed to fear them?

This movie sat on a shelf for a few years due to the issues with MGM, and you can tell because of the age of the actors.  Both Chris Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson look significantly younger, and I would imagine had this movie been made now, that Hutcherson would have likely gotten a larger role due to his popularity after The Hunger Games.  I'm sure their current fame played a part in the timing of this release as well.  I did find it odd that it came out during the holidays, as this felt like something that should have been pushed out toward the end of August or March.

It did deliver a bit on the action though.  I think the reason I didn't absolutely hate the movie was that when there was fighting, it was pretty decent.  It wasn't cheap looking, nor was it over the top.  They actually employed strategy during their attacks, so I appreciated that   It is PG-13, so it's not particularly bloody.

Another strength of the film was the performance of Chris Hemsworth.  It's easy to say this in hindsight, but you can see when watching how he was clearly destined for greater roles.  Although, his American accent still needed some work back then, as there were a few times you could hear his Australian sneak out from time to time.  I also liked his chemistry with Adrianne Palicki.

Red Dawn is yet another unnecessary remake that doesn't do anything to justify it's existence. It features a story with even more logic holes and less character development than the original, and has a very abrupt and unsatisfying ending.  It's just not all that fun or entertaining.  You aren't missing anything here, folks.

1.5 (out of 5) Death Stars