Trailer Trashin’: G.I. Joe: Retaliation Brings the High Explosive Fun
With the release of The Avengers this Friday, the 2012 summer movie season officially begins. As an appropriate tie-in, this week’s Trailer Trashin’ features another summer movie about a team of larger-than-life heroes: G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
Premise: The war between the elite fighting force G.I. Joe and the terrorist organization Cobra is reignited when Cobra agents within the U.S. government frame the G.I. Joe team as traitors and order a military strike against them. Most of the Joes are wiped out, and only a small group of survivors remain – including Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), Flint (D.J. Cotrona), and Snake Eyes (Ray Park). Outnumbered and outgunned, they hatch a plan to defeat Cobra and save the world, and the Joes must turn to their one remaining ally – the original G.I. Joe, General Joseph Colton (Bruce Willis).
My take: As one of the seemingly few people who unabashedly enjoyed 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and thought it should have been more successful than it was, it was a pleasant surprise to hear that a sequel was actually on the way. As bits of news came out related to the sequel, there wasn’t anything that sounded bad, but there also wasn’t anything that blew me away. Then the first trailer came out, and it was way more impressive than I had expected. By the time they showed the Cobra banners flying in front of the White House, I was hooked.
I was surprised when I first heard that only a handful of the actors from the first film were returning for the sequel. Back for this second tour of duty are Channing Tatum as field commander Duke, Ray Park as the Joes’ ninja Snake Eyes, Lee Byung-hun as Cobra’s ninja Storm Shadow, Jonathan Pryce as the U.S. President, and (not seen in this trailer) Arnold Vosloo as Cobra’s master of disguise Zartan. Among the new cast members, the most prominent is clearly Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as heavy weapon specialist Roadblock, and he seems right at home here. I think Bruce Willis, who I discussed my fandom of in a previous column, is a fantastic choice to play General Colton, but I’m curious to see how big of a role he has, and I really hope the filmmakers don’t have him betray the Joes or something clichéd like that. The other featured new Joes – D.J. Cotrona as warrant officer Flint, Adrianne Palicki as covert ops trooper Lady Jaye, and Elodie Yung as ninja infiltrator Jinx – seem to be handling themselves well from what we’ve seen so far. On the villain tip, Ray Stevenson, whom I liked a lot in both Punisher: War Zone (2008) and Thor (2011), looks cool and menacing as Cobra saboteur Firefly. And the glimpses we’ve gotten of the new and improved Cobra Commander, with Faran Tahir taking over for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, look really nice, especially considering his lame translucent skull-mask from last time has been replaced with something that both looks better and is much more like the classic cartoon version.
Adrianne Palicki in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” © 2012 – Paramount Pictures.
Director Jon M. Chu at first seemed like an unusual choice to replace Stephen Sommers at the helm of the G.I. Joe film series, considering that Chu’s previous feature credits are the dance films Step Up 2: The Streets (2008) and Step Up 3D (2010) and the concert film Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011). But he seems to be handling himself well so far, and it makes sense that someone who’s spent much of his career filming choreographed dances would also be good at shooting action scenes. Additionally, Chu is working from a screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the scribes behind Zombieland (2009), so I feel confident in thinking he has some solid material to work with.
Believe it or not, I actually like what they’re doing in terms of the story here. Having Cobra present themselves to the public as a Blackwater-like private military contractor working for the U.S. government is kind of brilliant. That, combined with the fact that the Joes have their personnel and equipment largely wiped out, is a creative way to up the stakes and put the team at a disadvantage. And I’m glad they kept with the big reveal from the end of the first film that – spoiler from almost three years ago – the U.S. President has been replaced by Zartan in disguise.
This sequel also looks like it’ll totally blow away its predecessor in terms of action. The attack by Cobra on the Joes’ headquarters/encampment, which I assume will be pretty early in the film, looks impressive, and I imagine things will only escalate from there. After the first film had the bad guys level the Eiffel Tower and surrounding area with metal-eating nano-machines, they’re upping the stakes this time by destroying London – or at least a large portion of it – with what appears to be a satellite-mounted earthquake machine. But the scene I’m most impressed with is the mountain fight, where Snake Eyes and Jinx are fighting a group of red-suited Cobra ninjas while all of them are hanging by ropes on the side of a mountain.
Ray Park in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” © 2012 – Paramount Pictures.
I don’t feel the need to complain about much here. Sure, it’s silly and not at all realistic, but what would be the point of doing a realistic take on G.I. Joe? Sure, it’s likely that no one in the cast will be flexing any acting muscles, but as long as the way they portray their characters fits in the world the two films have established, that’s not a problem. The only thing I really feel concerned about is that, with such a large cast, some of the characters are probably going to get the shaft in terms of stuff to do. In particular, I’m guessing that Eddie Hargitay as Tunnel Rat, Matt Gerald as Zandar, and Joseph Mazzello as Mouse won’t get much screen time.
It may sound ridiculous to lavish this much attention on a silly popcorn movie based on a line od toys, but I don’t care. After the holy trinity of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and Prometheus, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is one of my most anticipated films this summer. It looks completely ridiculous, but it also looks like tons of fun. And sometimes, that is exactly what a summer movie should be.
ANTICIPATION: Not even Cobra Commander himself could stop me from being there opening weekend – Yo Joe!
Release Date: June 29th, 2012
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis, Ray Park, Lee Byung-hun, Arnold Vosloo, D.J. Cotrona, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Stevenson, Faran Tahir, RZA, Elodie Yung, Eddie Hargitay, Matt Gerald, Joseph Mazzello, Jonathan Pryce, and Walton Goggins
Director: Jon M. Chu
Writers: Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick
Timothy Monforton
