Time: 110 Minutes
Age Rating: M – contains violence
Cast:
Dwayne Johnson as Marvin F. Hinton / Roadblock
Bruce Willis as General Joe Colton
D. J. Cotrona as Dashiell R. Faireborn / Flint
Channing Tatum as Conrad S. Hauser / Duke
Arnold Vosloo as Zartan
Jonathan Pryce as President of the United States
Lee Byung-hun as Thomas Arashikage / Storm Shadow
Ray Park as Snake Eyes
Elodie Yung as Kim Arashikage / Jinx
Ray Stevenson as Firefly
Adrianne Palicki as Jaye Burnett / Lady Jaye
Director: Jon M. Chu

I personally found the widely panned G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra to be entertaining, even if it wasn’t that good. I didn’t get around to watching the sequel released in 2013, but I heard it was slightly more positively received. Despite that, I found that I enjoyed Retaliation about as much as the previous movie. It did some things better, but also has its own shortcomings that hardly made it much better.

Like its predecessor, Retaliation’s central plot isn’t that good, and was at its best when it was focussing on Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. What is starkly different is the tone, as it attempts to be a little more serious with how it approaches the story, and the actors are playing things largely seriously despite also delivering silly lines. The thing is, I enjoyed the level of campiness from The Rise of Cobra, and taking all that out results in a somewhat bland action movie Still, I had fun with it.

Dwayne Johnson is in the lead role here. While he delivers a very familiar Dwayne Johnson performance, he still brings some charisma and makes for a better lead than Channing Tatum in the first movie, (though that wasn’t exactly his fault). Lee Byung-hun is once again good as Storm Shadow and was one of the highlights of the cast. Jonathan Pryce also returns and surprisingly ends up being one of the highlights too. He plays dual roles, again playing the now imprisoned President of the United States while also playing Arnold Vosloo’s character from the previous movie who is currently impersonating the president. Pryce is having a blast and chewing the scenery, and he’s one of the only actors in the movie who is appropriately hamming it up. Ray Stevenson, Walton Goggins, and Elodie Yung are welcome additions, with Stevenson particularly making for a good villain. Finally, Bruce Willis also has a role here, and he’s fun to watch too.

Jon M. Chu’s direction is pretty standard overall. There are some entertaining action set pieces, with some good choreography and enjoyable stunts. Compared to the last movie, the cinematography, visuals, editing and CGI are notably better. At the same time, so much of it just looks like the average action movie and suffers from a lack of style.

Like the previous movie, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is dumb fun with a silly plot. The action is entertaining and has been improved, but it lacks some of the absurd and cartoonish nature of the first movie.