G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Well, it wasn't great, but it was leagues above the first outing. Dwayne Johnson wasn't exactly the articulate chef with the heavy machine gun that we all knew and loved, but the story behind and the characters seemed a lot more like the GI Joe of the comic books, the GI Joe of the cartoons. It seemed more like early GI Joe, and early Larry Hama, it seemed more like the era where he was writing a military comic book for a military toy geared towards little boys, rather than the over-the-top gadgets that came in the early 90s. But the main draw is that the characters seemed more keyed to the comic books, more keyed into the file cards, they seemed to have more of a personality than the last installment, and that is what made Joe fun.

This is actually the third time seeing this, not because I liked it nor am that big of a fan of the toy line it spawned from, but saw this in the theaters, then again on Blu-ray and now on 4K Ultra HD, the latter two times for review. I had doubt this third viewing would make much of a difference and while I found it entertaining and perhaps a slight upgrade in rating (2.75 vs 3.0) and that it was better assembled compared with The Rise of Cobra, including visual effects that was a massive improvement over the video game-y crap in that film), it's still not all that great. I liked the cast including Dwayne Johnson and cutie Adrianne Palicki; while Bruce Willis was alright, albeit phoning it in (I assume he needed to pay off his mortgage to appear in this as the 'Joe' of GI Joe). Doubt there will be a fourth time outside of the "Extended Action Cut" (not included in the 4K Ultra HD set unfortunately), but it's a non-descript and somewhat forgettable popcorn sci-fi action-thriller. **3.0/5**

With some of my favorite actors like Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson I was really expecting this to be a great movie! It certainly had action and those actors had great lines and roles. But the movie seemed to be split into a bad version of Small Soldiers and a Jackie Chan movie two separate styles each separate and then only tied together by a thin thread towards the end of the movie. Again, feels like more effort could have been put into checking the story before making the movie.

73/100 An impostor, posing as the U.S. President, tries to destroy the Joes and then start Armageddon in a typical megalomaniacal style. The film could certainly use some improvement in dialog, much of their attempt at wit was simplistic and flat, and the characters were rather shallow albeit likable and fun to watch. The highlight here is the action sets that were explosive, tightly choreographed, well shot with a minimum of shaky cameras, and incredibly exciting ...the cliff side fight sequence was pure gold. Overall, my wife and I found this to be a very entertaining watch. -- DrNostromo.com