G.I. Joe: Retaliation

 I used to go to the movies at least once a week....sometimes several times a week. I saw everything that came out, with the exception (The rare exception...) of things that just looked like they would be too unbearable to watch, like Tyler Perry films, or chick-flicks. Then I met my Wife. Two kids and an insane mortgage later, I see, maybe, a movie every three to five months. It was hard to get used to, but I did, and now it's difficult to get me to see ANY film in the theater unless it looks like a perfect 10.

 Yet tonight, I was shanghaied by my friends into seeing G.I. JOE: RETALIATION. I've been a fan of The Rock since his early days in the WWF (I still have a hard time calling it "The WWE". They should have never given in to those animal rights fuckers!), and his presence usually guarantees at least a bit of fun in whatever movie he's appearing in.

Such is not the case here.

 Granted, he has a scene at the beginning with Channing Tatum the virtually screams "We shot this months after wrapping the film, so we could get a little more Channing Tatum in, now that he's famous and loved by everyone!", which was kind of fun, in a goofy, dopey way. They had good chemistry together. But...

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read at your own risk!!!!























 Tatum dies fairly early on, so there goes the chemistry. Apparently every other Joe dies, too, including (Offscreen, one would assume...) all of the stars of the first film, which I have never seen, so I didn't miss them. Except for Rachel Nichols, because how could you not miss this...?
                                                  

 Having never seen the first film, I found myself caring just as little for that films characters as I did for this films characters. Except for wondering why they couldn't have given Rachel Nichols a part. Instead we get Adrianne Palicki, who looks cute in some scenes, not so much in others, but she has a couple of weird warty-looking things on her face that I just could not stop seeing, no matter what else was happening in the movie.
                                              

    See what I mean? Now imagine that 50 feet high.....

 Anyway, Channing Tatum gets killed, along with a few dozen other faceless rabble of Joes, the President  is Zartan, Cobra Commander gets broken out of Prison (But they leave Destro.....Go figure.), Bruce Willis shows up to audition for the role of Matilda in the inevitable ANGRY BIRDS movie......

                                                       Come on.....Right?

....and the most assholish (Yeah, I just made up that word for this films ending...) thing ever happens at the end, which I've already spoiler-warned you for, even though they SHOW IT IN THE COMMERCIALS!!!!, so don't complain to me if you read this and get mad: Zartan and Cobra Commander drop giant Tungsten rods on England from Space, destroying  London utterly. Problem? Well, the problem is that the G.I. Joe team is IN THE ROOM, AND COULD HAVE STOPPED THEM BEFORE THEY DROPPED THE RODS, but they wait until, literally 5 seconds later to make their presence known. They don't even scream "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!" or anything. They may as well have screamed "FUCK LONDON, YOU LIMEY FUCKERS!!!!", considering the fact that this mass-murder from Space is never, ever mentioned again. Fuck Cobra, fuck Space, and fuck this movie.

 Aside from that, this is a movie that you will forget almost entirely as soon as you wake up the next morning. When I said "That was awful." upon leaving the theater, my friends asked me if it was as bad as VAN HELSING, which I hated so much that I almost had a stroke brought on from too much hate. (Even months later, when it came out on DVD, I used to take any copies I found in a store and hide them, so no one else would be subjected to watching it.) I had to say that this was worse than VAN HELSING, because at least that film provoked a reaction of some sort. The only reaction I had to G.I. JOE: RETALIATION was wishing that I had worn my glow-in-the-dark watch, so I could see how much longer this tripe was going to go on for. I fell asleep (ON PURPOSE! I actually SET OUT TO FALL ASLEEP!!!) for about 20 minutes, and missed absolutely nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Not a blessed thing.

 Any GOOD things to say, you ask? Well, Ray Stevenson fights The Rock twice, which was kind of cool, and Ray Parks did a decent job as a little tiny, eensy-weensy Snake Eyes. (I have no idea how tall he is, but he appeared to be a tad taller than Peter Dinklage.) As I said, this wasn't an aggressively BAD movie, but it was an incredibly "Meh..." movie. I told them we should see OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, but did they listen? Nooooooooo..........

P.S.- I, perhaps inevitably, ended up married to a Woman who thinks VAN HELSING is "A pretty good movie".