G.I. Joe: Retaliation

While it made over $300 million back in 2009, I can think of exactly one person I know who saw and liked G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Okay, one person other than me. It was mindless, stupid fun with a cool cast. Well, the makers didn't exactly strike while the iron was hot, but it didn't seem to matter. With little of the same cast returning, 2013's G.I. Joe: Retaliation was an immense box office success. Is it any good?

Having led a successful mission to recover stolen nuclear devices in Pakistan, a G.I. Joe force is prepping for evacuation when an air strike wipes out much of the force. What happened? Who ordered the attack? Only three G.I. Joes survive the air strike, including Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (D.J. Cotrona), and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki). They manage to escape in the aftermath, vowing revenge. All evidence points to Cobra Commander being up to something, but no one knows that he's replaced the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce) with one of his right-hand men, Zartan (Arnold Vosloo). The evil Commander is just waiting for the right opportunity to unleash his plan. The surviving Joes are back in America by now. Can they figure out what's going on before they're eliminated too?

As mentioned, this sequel from director Jon M. Chu is a not so timely follow-up to the 2009 original. It earned over $370 million in theaters so it obviously landed well with audiences, a good thing considering it had some issues getting to theaters. A release date was pushed back almost a year to transition the film to 3-D (more on that later) amidst rumors of horrific audience screenings. Only a handful of cast members from the original even returned, and those parts are pretty weak in execution. It's not quite a sequel in name only because there are unifying links, but it sure is close to being a stand-alone movie. I'll be giving it a positive review based almost solely on some cool characters and action, but there's some big issues along the way. We'll get there in time.

Taking the helm for the franchise going ahead -- supposedly at least -- Johnson does a fine job as Roadblock. We learn little about him other than meet his two daughters (very briefly), and that he's a capable soldier with just about any weapon at his disposal. Cotrona and Palicki are okay as the rest of the Joes, Palicki there mostly to wear skimpy outfits and fire automatic weapons. Other member of the G.I. Joe organization are Snake Eyes (Ray Park), a helmeted, silent, sword-wielding ninja, and Jinx (Elodie Yung), a ninja who's....well, a ninja with no other background provided. Also joining the cast is Bruce Willis as General Joe Colton, the original inspiration for G.I. Joe. It's not a big part, but Willis makes the most of it, deadpanning his way through a couple good one-liners.

Now for the bad guys, cool because they're bad guys without any real background, reasoning and motivation. Price is the evil President, hamming it up and having some fun with it. Vosloo is there in appearance only, not uttering a word. Byung-hun Lee is the coolest villain as Storm Shadow, a sullen ninja with a tricked out pair of swords with only one rival, Snake Eyes. Ray Stevenson joins the villains too as Firefly, a mercenary working with Cobra. Luke Bracey plays Cobra Commander (replacing Joseph Gordon-Levitt), but it's a wasted part. Little in the way of lines or actual screen time, it's there because the G.I. Joes fight against Cobra commander. That's all. Walton Goggins has a small part as a sinister, brutal prison warden.

Not surprisingly, the best thing going here is the action. With a movie that runs about 100 minutes, I'm guessing no more than three to four minutes go by in between action scenes. We're never far from a chase, shootout, fist fight or cool one-liner. The opening raid to get back the Pakistani nuclear weapons is solid, and the finale at Fort Sumter (yes, Fort Sumter!) is cool because about 100 different things are going on at the same time. The high point is Snake Eyes and Jinx trying to capture Storm Shadow from a heavily guarded mountainside in the Himalayas. Using bungees, Snake Eyes, Jinx and a small army of Cobra ninjas swing perilously thousands off feet up in the air. The action is pretty good, making up for a script that isn't interested in character development at all (we're talking any background at all), scene to scene transitions and dialogue that isn't a snappy one-liner. This is an action movie, pure and simple. Literally, there's nothing else going on!

Okay, quasi-spoilers from here on out. When this sequel was made, producers/studios apparently decided 'Cobra' star Channing Tatum wasn't capable of carrying the franchise going forward. Well, their mistake, because in the time in between, Tatum shot to stardom with 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike among others. As for the pushed back release date? Supposedly audiences hated that Tatum was dispatched rather quickly in this sequel. Reshoots had some more development between Tatum's Duke and Johnson's Roadblock, scenes that are pretty decent but also pretty obvious in how forced they are into the story. Tatum has goatee, doesn't have goatee, does have goatee. It's a ridiculously forced, contrived "solution" that works because Tatum and Johnson have good chemistry, but it's hard not to notice.

In general, there is something missing here. 'Retaliation' is so ridiculously all over the place with so many freaking characters that it is almost frenetic in its final version. It's never dull so that's always a positive, but it is so mindlessly stupid it's hard to describe. A mildly positive review because even through all the flaws, I was entertained from beginning to end.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013): ** 1/2 /****

Blood Diamond

Out of conflict comes the good and the bad.  There are those who try and do something with the idea of accomplishing something good, and then there are others who try to profit from the suffering all around them.  Then somewhere in between are the unwilling and unlucky caught in the middle just fighting to survive.  Based in Sierra Leone in 1999, 2006's Blood Diamond has a character pertaining to each description.

This is an action movie with a message -- an undervalued and under appreciated sub genre in action movies.  Basing a story in war torn Sierra Leone is not the basis for a feel-good, up story, and director Edward Zwick tries to show his story without any unnecessary upbeat feelings.  A repeated line is 'TIA...this is Africa.'  Here's the situation, deal with it.  As government troops battle rebel forces, both sides seek to control the diamond fields where prisoners search for blood diamonds that will be used to fund the fight by buying arms and ammunitions.  Amidst the chaos is the story of three people, a man looking for riches, another searching for his family, and a journalist trying to do something right.

With previous movies like Glory, The Last Samurai, and Defiance, Zwick has proven adept at handling big, sweeping pictures.  Add Blood Diamond to the list because this is a big movie, especially in terms of scale.  The movie was shot in Africa -- benefiting greatly from it -- and gives you a real sense of what surviving amidst a civil war must have been like.  It is a chaotic trip through war-ravaged Sierra Leone with death around every corner.  But for all the brutality and violence, there is a beauty to the movie as Archer and Vandy trek across the expanses of the countryside with the beauty of the nature shining through.  Credit there goes to cinematographer Eduardo Serra and composer James Newton Howard for blending the visual and audio so seamlessly.

It's late in the Sierra Leone Civil War in 1999 and poor fisherman and father Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) has been torn away from his family by rebel forces and forced to work in the diamond mines.  Vandy finds an enormous diamond which he manages to hide as government troops overwhelm the mine, but he's thrown in jail.  There a Rhodesian smuggler and arms dealer, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), hears of his find and arranges Vandy's release. Danny himself was thrown into jail for smuggling diamonds and now owes his boss (Arnold Vosloo) a hefty sum.  Vandy suspiciously agrees to lead Archer to the diamond if he will help him find his family.  With help from a do-good journalist (Jennifer Connelly), Archer agrees and they set off into the chaotic, brutal countryside, the smuggler dreaming of the riches that await him, the fisherman yearning to see his family again.

Since his star-making part in Titanic, DiCaprio has shown an ability to take on some pretty meaty roles and not just playing the romantic lead.  He was nominated for best lead actor here and it's a nomination he really deserved.  His Archer is a bit of a wild card in that it is almost impossible to read him.  Sure, he says he's trying to help Solomon, but he has also shown that he looks out for himself and his own well-being above all else.  This is a 3-D, flesh and blood character that DiCaprio brings to life.  He is a deeply flawed individual with a past that still haunts him.  And on a much lighter note, he gets to do another interesting accent, pulling off a South African accent nicely.  This isn't an easy character to read or root for, but Danny Archer is certainly interesting to watch.

Like DiCaprio, Hounsou was also nominated -- for best supporting actor -- for his part as Solomon Vandy.  I was first introduced to Hounsou with his supporting part in Gladiator and have liked him ever since.  He is able to combine a quiet dignity with emotions that might explode at any minute.  This man is going to do anything he can to ensure the safety of his family.  The scene where he discovers his son has been taken by rebel forces is difficult to watch because we're seeing a man come apart at the seams as the anger and pure hatred coarse through his veins.  It is a great performance and one that matches DiCaprio's powerhouse role.  Connelly's character is nothing new -- a journalist exhausted at the ways of the world who gets a sick thrill from what she's doing -- but she pulls it off well.  Her Maddy could have felt like an add-on to the story, but she ends up playing an important role in the cross country trek.

Like any movie, certain scenes stick with you longer than others.  Looking to examples like Glory (the assault on Fort Wagner) and Last Samurai (the final battle), it's a safe statement to say that Zwick puts together epic action scenes as well as any director around.  They're interesting to watch, but they also resonate emotionally because there's an attachment to the characters and their situation.  Two sequences come to mind here.  One, Archer and Solomon race through city streets as rebel forces invade, and two, an air strike is called in on a rebel camp as Archer and Solomon look for his son and the blood diamond.  Both action set pieces have an enormous scale that is a pleasure to watch, all building to a final chase as they head for an airfield and a plane that will take them to safety.

My complaint here is that Blood Diamond is a long movie at 143 minutes.  It's never dull, and looking back I can't think of scenes I would cut to shorten it.  But it feels really long, like I was watching for much longer than 2.5 hours.  It's hard to put a figure on it because the pacing is all right, and the characters certainly take you for a ride.  Maybe it's just that the story takes a long time to get where it wants to be.  None of this is enough to deter me from recommending it, but it is something that bothered me just the same.  A very good movie all around with great performances and a sweeping story.

Blood Diamond <----trailer (2006): ***/****

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Now if you're judging my feelings of summer blockbusters by my review of Transformers 2, you might think I hate all those big action movies, but it's really just the opposite. I love movies like that, the review just shows how bad I thought T2 was in comparison to most similar movies. A good example of what an enjoyable summer action blockbuster is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra which surprised me. I thought it looked good but wasn't dying to see it, but a day later I'm still glad I did.

Plots can be secondary and often third or fourth in the list of important elements to a blockbuster, but G.I. Joe takes a familiar formula, villain threatening to destroy the world city by city, and adds an interesting wrinkle with some new technology. They're called the nanomites, microscopic robots originally intended to fight cancer cells but transformed into weapons that take apart and completely dismantle whatever they're shot at, like tanks, cars, buildings, you name it. So here's the plot going from the nanomites.

With some funding from NATO, MARS Industry CEO James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) has perfected turning the nanomites into an offensive weapon and has spent billions of dollars on manufacturing 4 warheads with his new weapon. But while being shipped, the column guarding the warheads is attacked, with Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) as part of the force. Whoever is attacking them, led by the mysterious Baroness (Sienna Miller), has advanced technology that the army is defenseless against. The column is saved by a group of fighters who rescue the warheads and Duke and Ripcord as well.

The group is transported to 'the Pit' a top secret base deep below the Egyptian desert where they're introduced to General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) who explains the layout to their organization. They are G.I. Joe, the best soldiers from all around the world working together to keep Earth safe from whoever would do it harm. Duke and Ripcord blackmail their way into Team Alpha and get to work finding out who wants the technology. Everything points to McCullen who with the Baroness, and henchmen Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee), Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) and one mysterious villian (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) look to make another grab for the nanomite warheads and it doesn't look like anything can stop them.

What I like about big movies like this is that it allows huge casts to work together and let them clearly have fun making a highly entertaining movie. Come on, Dennis Quaid is in the movie for about 15 minutes, delivers some appropriately cheesy/inspirational lines, and looks tough. He's gotta be loving that. The G.I. Joe team is an interesting list of unique actors and characters like Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), the tough sergeant of the group, Snake Eyes (Ray Park) the resident badass and expert in martial arts and by far the coolest Joe, Breaker (Said Taghmaoui), the communication expert, and Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), the team's weapons expert. So as anyone who read some past reviews of mine knows, this is basically the Magnificent 7, a men-on-a-mission movie with Duke and Ripcord joining the team.

With some ridiculously cool technology available, the beneficiary is the action scenes. The coolest gadget was the accerlation suits which help you react quicker and faster, jump higher, so basically PF Flyers on steroids. The chase through Paris as Storm Shadow and the Baroness try to take out the Eiffel Tower is an exciting, well-put together sequence as the Joes frantically try to catch up with Duke and Ripcord in the suits, Scarlet on a motorcycle, and Heavy Duty and Breaker just trying to keep up. On the whole, the action is the reason to see this movie. It's cut so you can actually see what's going on and the CGI is apparent but done well.

On to the casting which ranges from very good to very wooden. I don't know Channing Tatum's appeal, check that, I do but don't get it. The guy's got the personality and delivery of a cardboard box and his so-called dramatic lines come across as comical, hopefully unintentionally so. The rest of the cast makes up for, including surprisingly enough Marlon Wayans who revels in the smartass sidekick role along with Sienna Miller who has finally made a mainstream blockbuster. For one, with dark hair and low-cut leather outfits, she looks amazing, and two, her character is a badass. Hopefully, she sticks with the more mainstream movies, or at least not completely sticking with the indies. It's a fun cast and it looks like they enjoyed themselves making GI Joe.

So is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra a stupid summer blockbuster full of action and somewhat short on story? You bet, but it does what it's supposed to. It doesn't overdo the action sequences and CGI and keeps it exciting without trying to melt your face with its 'Michael Bay coolness.' Good cast top to bottom with one cameo I won't spoil here, and an ending that leaves the door open for a sequel which hopefully they do make in the next couple of years. Surprised by how much I enjoyed this so don't listen to the negative reviews, G.I. Joe is a lot of fun.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra <-----trailer (2009): ***/****