GI Joe Retaliation Review

The Rock Shoots things in GI Joe Retaliation

GI Joe Retaliation

D

A Review by Frederick Cholowski

The first thought that one should have after watching GI Joe Retaliation is “What the heck did I just watch.” Retaliation may be one of the most brilliant parodies of the modern action film. There is a cut every 5 to 15 seconds, it attempts to be hip and modern, there is close to no plot and it has one of the most confusing, rushed, and awful endings of all time. Heck it was even pulled from its spot last summer to add 3D. That being said it’s most likely not a parody as it seems like some of this film is to be taken seriously, or was taken seriously by the people making the film. In that case this film is god awful, no exaggeration.

There is no plot in this film, really there isn’t. Well there is some I guess but what is there is so paper thin that it’s hardly noticeable. The Rock’s character (whose name I’m still unsure of) and his two backups are on the run after the president of the United States (who’s not really the president of the United States of course) killed off every GI Joe operative so that the Cobra organization can take over the world. Yep that’s it! Nothing else here at all.

The whole film is shot like one big quick cut action film. There is literally a cut every 5 to 15 seconds even when it is just a conversation. The film looks as if a high school film student was doing a coverage exercise. Is this generation really that ADHD? The action scenes suffer from this too as for most of them I literally had no clue what was going on in any of the sequences (save for the one good one with ninjas on mountains). Guns go off continuously and the camera cuts so fast that it’s nearly impossible to see what is going on at all times even during scenes of dialogue.

The whole reason I have the idea that this is parody is that it is so ridiculous and stupid it is hard to believe that anyone would take even parts of this seriously. For example the genius plan that the villains have is to fire off all of the nuclear weapons that the Untied States owns in hope that all of the other nuclear countries fire their weapons and then self destruct the ones they fired in order to get the other countries to self destruct theirs, then use their satellite weapon to destroy all the other countries. It is stupid!!!!!!! It can’t be serious and yet it seems too much like the film is taking it seriously that I can’t take it as a parody.

The filmmakers try to give some back story to the characters but fails so miserably it isn’t even funny (which most of the film is unintentionally). They attempt at the last second to provide a bit of background and plot to the film but do so for all of about 2 minutes. I’m not kidding each character get’s all of 30 seconds of stupid back story. What’s worse is that most of the back story comes off as both sexist and racist. For example the rapper RZA’s sensei character talks in a lisp to try and sound Asian. How did that make it in to this film????

Then there is the ending. We won’t get into that; we really won’t.

If GI Joe Retaliation is really a parody of the modern mindless action film then I will reconsider all the criticisms I have leveled upon them as brilliant bits of parody. If it truly is a parody it is a brilliant one. If not, as I suspect it isn’t, this film is horrid and should be stayed away from at all costs.