Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Review: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

In 2009 we were greeted with one of the biggest toy commercials (or to some a movie) on screen which was G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. The film left me disappointed and bored to hell. Will this sequel still be the same or will it be good? Find out below.



Synopsis:
In this sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. -- (C) Paramount

Story:
Like the first installment, this film also suffers from lack of coherence in the story. Granted though, this movie has a better story than the first one but that really isn't saying much. I had my issues with the story of this movie. First is there was no consistency in each scene of it, it's like they are telling a straight forward story and it suddenly cuts into another scene which is not really pivotal but mostly a filler scene. Second, there is almost no buildup towards what will happen with the story, it just pops onto the screen. 

This movie is scripted by Zombieland duo (one of my favorite zombie flicks ever) Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese and to see that they are the ones responsible for the story on this one was just underwhelming. 

Acting:
The cast involved in this movie gave a performance that is basically them playing themselves. It seems like everyone was bored unto making this movie. The performance that was a real standout though was Dwayne Johnson, Addriane Palicki, Ray Park, Ray Stevenson and Jonathan Pryce.

Johnson's performance was good enough even though he was just playing himself, his advantage to this role though is the charisma that he carries throughout the movie. Palicki was also good in her role, she kicked ass in her role and also managed to be really hot on screen. As for the rest that I mentioned above, they completely owned the role, they were very watchable and to me they are the ones who carried the movie.

How about Bruce Willis? Honestly, he was forgettable in the role, it was more like a cameo role. I think Willis needs to take a break from all the action flicks and just make other movies in other genres. Seeing him in action films these days gets a little tiresome.

Action:
The film is indeed action-packed but the problem is, even though there is a lot of action in this movie, it did not help the movie from being not boring. I was bored when the action sequences came, and like I said before there is no buildup in the scenes and that includes the action sequences. The only thing that got me hooked up on the action scenes is the insane gadgets that they have in this movie, they were beautiful to look at and the destruction those gadgets presented was really cool.

Also, I have to admit though there were two action sequences in the movie that actually let's me feel that this is going to be good and also for me, this has the better fight sequences than the previous installments.

What I also hated in this aspect of the movie is the recurring "zooming" sound in each sequence which was really irritating and it happened over and over again.

Cinematography/VFX:
The film did a good job on showing the actions and mainly because it didn't use the overrated shaky-cam these days which was really a pain in the noggin. It also showed how big this movie is going for, it was able to display the destruction pretty well especially how London was leveled (shown  in the trailers), it was pretty good.

The VFX was also top notch in this movie, it helped to show more gadgets and more explosive action scene (or to my case two explosive action scenes). This movie had a better effects than the previous one whereas the first one was obviously fake.

Direction:
I am not a fan of Jon M. Chu, the Step-Up movies didn't spark interest to me ( having seen only some few snippets of each movie) and this movie still did not make me a fan. His direction in this movie was sloppy and the only good thing he did in this one was shooting the action sequences.

Overall:
While being so much better in it's terrible predecessor, this movie is still one big commercial for toy sales. The story was bad, the acting was average (except for Dwayne Johnson, Addriane Palicki, Ray Park, Ray Stevenson and Jonathan Pryce) and the direction is very sloppy. The only good things from this movie is the action and the VFX. I was disappointed with this movie (and to think that this is going to be good). This is just one terrible film.



Favorite line:
Joe Colton: My cholesterol's a little high.


No comments:

Post a Comment