{"id":4876,"date":"2013-03-28T06:16:20","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T13:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=4876"},"modified":"2013-03-28T06:16:20","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T13:16:20","slug":"g-i-joe-retaliation-more-of-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=4876","title":{"rendered":"G.I. JOE: RETALIATION More of Less"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThe most surprising thing I found about \u201cG.I. Joe: Retaliation\u201d is that the word retaliation has not been used as a subtitle for one of the \u201cResident Evil\u201d movies. \u201cResident Evil: Retaliation\u201d just sounds like a movie that already exists. In my research (a quick IMDB pull of Milla Jovovich) I found that this is not the case.<\/p>\n

The second most surprising thing I found about \u201cG.I. Joe: Retaliation\u201d is that the film has far less going on in it than its predecessor. This really is unusual as the tendency with a Big Action Sequel is usually to pile on more of the good stuff. To heighten the stakes. I come to expect More Explosions, More Villains, More Excitement. Yet for some reason we get Less G.I. Joe\u2019s, Less Intelligence and Less Channing Tatum. The resulting film is a ho-hum experience with not much to offer but some poorly executed bloodless PG-13 violence and little else.<\/p>\n

Not to say that the original \u201cG.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra\u201d (a subtitle that \u201cResident Evil\u201d should never try to use) was anything special. In fact that flick was such a fleeting piece of disposable fluff that I remember very little. The journalist inside thought I should re-watch for research reasons but I decided against once I realized that it was the movie with Marlon Wayans in that Super-Suit running around. I do not want to watch something that contains that as a \u201cselling point\u201d for a second time, regardless if Sienna Miller is in it.<\/p>\n

The fact that \u201cRetaliation\u201d has even less going for it is truly a shocker. But instead of a huge cast of characters pulled for the Hasbro toyline, this time around the Joe\u2019s have been reduced to only five gun-packing soldiers:\u00a0 Roadblock (Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson),\u00a0 Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), Flint (D.J. Cotrona), Jinx (Elodie Yung) and- my personal favorite- Snake Eyes (Ray Park- who played Darth Maul). The rest of the daring, highly-trained Special Mission force has been \u201cremoved\u201d by our some very questionable decisions made by the United States government. The Joe\u2019s are not only going up against the evil terrorist of Cobra, but they have the president gunning for them as well.<\/p>\n

There is a plan to destroy the world and the remaining Joe\u2019s fight to stop it. Of course. \u00a0They go and recruit the original Joe named Joe played by Bruce Willis. This does very little to kick things into gear as Mr. Willis is given very little to do. He does have a montage where he opens drawers and cabinets in his house to reveal guns everywhere. There are about 20 shots of this action and you start to wonder:<\/p>\n

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  1. Am I supposed to still find this amusing after 2 minutes of guns revealed in silverware drawers?<\/li>\n
  2. Is this guy sick for have such a ridiculously huge arsenal in his kitchen?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    \nBut the trick is to not think at all. The internal logic used is aimed at 3 year-olds and people who can only buy Velcro shoes because the illusive shoe knot is too intricate to master. At first I told myself that certain plot points were designed to mirror what you would find in an episode of the 80s cartoon but some of this is too stupid even for that. I don\u2019t want to ruin anything (I still want to remain Spoiler Free just in case you NEED to see this) but the best illustration of the film\u2019s stupidity can be found in Storm Shadow\u2019s origin revelation. The scene is laughable.<\/p>\n

    Director Jon M. Chu is best known for dance films (\u201cStep Up 2 and 3\u201d) and his ability to shoot well-choreographed action is mostly lost. The violence is too frantic to tell what is going on, especially if you catch a 3D presentation. My eyes hurt. There is one sequence involving Snake Eyes battling ninjas attached to ropes dangling off the side of an enormous mountain. \u00a0\u201cG.I. Joe: Retaliation\u201d never gets better than that. In fact at the end of the scene, we cut to a crowd of people applauding as if Chu knew that he just gave us his best effort and you better have enjoyed it. Because that\u2019s all you really get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The most surprising thing I found about \u201cG.I. Joe: Retaliation\u201d is that the word retaliation has not been used as a subtitle for one of the \u201cResident Evil\u201d movies. \u201cResident Evil: Retaliation\u201d just sounds like a movie that already exists. In my research (a quick IMDB pull of Milla Jovovich) I found that this is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[771,3615,5037,6618,8029],"class_list":["post-4876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-adrianne-palicki","tag-bruce-willis","tag-d-j-cotrona","tag-dwayne-the-rock-johnson","tag-g-i-joe-retaliation"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}