Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) review

I’ve made it clear before that I’m a big fan of Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers’ films, and I’m also well-aware that by being a fan of these films, I am in the extreme minority when it comes to that opinion because there are quite a lot of people who really, really hate these movies and these people have certainly made an effort to express these opinions. In the past, I’ve defended these movies against their harshest critics and after re-watching them again, I still stand by my belief that they are honestly not as bad as everyone’s putting them out to be. I mean sure, I will concede that both ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ and ‘Dark of the Moon’ are not as good as the first of Bay’s ‘Transformers’ but at the end of the day they were still very entertaining popcorn flicks with some incredible visuals and action sequences even if it did come at the expense of the story and its characters. So now Bay is back for his fourth ‘Transformers’ film, ‘Age of Extinction’, which takes place a few years after the events of ‘Dark of the Moon’ and focuses on a new cast of main characters. But while this film is looking to reboot the franchise, one thing hasn’t changed… the critical reception. How bad are the reviews for this one, you ask? Well, at the time I’m writing this, it currently has a rating of 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, a worse score than the universally reviled ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ (Just let that sink in for a moment). And once again, I’m going to have to disagree with the majority of critics in regards to this latest entry in the series.

Five years after the Battle of Chicago, the friendly relationship between the people of Earth and the Transformers has since become very much strained. An elite government unit named Cemetery Wind, led by CIA Agent Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), begins to hunt down all of the Transformers that are still hiding out on Earth, namely the Autobots despite the fact that they protected the planet, and its people, from the Decepticons. While all of this is going on, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), a struggling inventor from Texas, comes across an old truck and plans on stripping it for parts so that he can sell them in order to provide for him and his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz). However, Cade and Tessa soon find out that this truck is actually Autobot leader Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), which results in Attinger and his team, as well as a Transformer bounty hunter named Lockdown (voiced by Mark Ryan), attempting to hunt them down. As Optimus rallies the remaining Autobots, with the help of Cade, Tessa, and her boyfriend Shane (Jack Reynor), the group looks to survive with the government hot on their tail. But they soon realize that Lockdown has a darker plan in store for Earth, one that threatens to wipe out both humans and Transformers at the same time.

Folks… let’s be honest here. Being that this is the fourth film in the ‘Transformers’ franchise, by now you should at least know what to expect from these films. A whole lot of action, mayhem, and visual effects paired with a story and characters that aren’t really up to par with everything else that’s in the film. Really, the amount of enjoyment you’ll have with this film all depends on whether or not you like these films in the first place and of course, I’m one of those who do like them. Now, for the record, I will agree on one of the main problems that many are having with this movie… it is way too damn long. That’s pretty ironic considering that I remember reading a report in which Michael Bay said that it would be the shortest of the films… and at the end of the day it ends up being the longest film in the series at 165 minutes. The thing about this movie is that it’s pretty much two movies in one. There’s a big action scene around the halfway point of the film in which the characters are on a big Transformer ship trying to save Optimus and Tessa. That could’ve been a good place to end this film and maybe Paramount could’ve done something along the lines of what Warner Bros. did with the Matrix sequels and have the second half of this film be its own thing and release it sometime later this year. But as is, the movie just keeps going and going until it stops. It still kept my interest, but it really could’ve benefitted from either a few cuts or, heck, even being a two-part film a la Harry Potter.

But even with that in mind, I still managed to enjoy this film for other reasons. The visuals of course are top notch as well as the action scenes (no one can do sequences like this quite like Bay). A lot of the action in the final act of the film is highlighted by the debuts of the Dinobots. They may not be in the movie that much but they easily end up being one of the best parts of the whole movie. I also give this movie credit for actually being a bit more legitimately serious in tone than the last three films. I mean keep in mind, we’re still talking about a Michael Bay directed ‘Transformers’ film so the idea of a serious tone can only go so far as there is still quite a bit of Bay’s ‘attempts’ at humor; some of it works, other times it doesn’t. I also liked that this film actually did focus on the Transformers a lot more than before. After seeing this film, I now realize that one of the issues with both of the previous two sequels was that because they were adding in a lot more Transformers than there were in the first film, not all of them were given enough quality time to shine as the film focused more on the main Transformers (e.g. Optimus and Bumblebee). Here, there aren’t as many Autobots as there were in the last two films and because of this they are allowed to have much more memorable personalities.

The new cast of human characters, while still not being the most developed characters out there mind you, was definitely a breath of fresh air for this series after the arcs of the characters from the original trilogy were already played out, mostly before the previous trilogy was even over. Mark Wahlberg instantly proves himself to be a superior lead to Shia LaBeouf in pretty much every way, as here he comes off as being very earnest and likable in the lead role (something Wahlberg is very much good at) and I found that I really liked how his character was very sympathetic being that he was someone who, as the movie begins, is just trying to get by making him a very relatable character in that regard. As for Nicola Peltz, while she unfortunately becomes yet another objectified blonde in a Michael Bay film (third film in a row this has happened, by the way), I actually thought that she wasn’t that bad in this. But Jack Reynor, on the other hand, comes off as being a bit too bland in this and he and Peltz don’t really have that much chemistry. As the main human villain, Kelsey Grammer doesn’t really do much in this film but I must say that Grammer definitely has a nice villainous presence in this regardless of the fact that he really isn’t in it as much as you would expect. Stanley Tucci is the other major standout of the cast besides Wahlberg. His character, a designer who looks to make his own Transformers after discovering the material that they’re made of, does have a pretty decent character arc in this, starting off as one of the supposed bad guys before having a change of heart. Plus, Tucci is just one of those actors who’s great no matter what film he’s in, good or bad.

I’m excited to see where this franchise goes next for its two sequels, but for the record, and I’m saying this as nicely as I possibly can, I think that it’s time for Michael Bay to step away from this franchise, if only because of the fact that more than a 1/3^rd of his directorial filmography so far has been nothing but these ‘Transformers’ movies. I do think that it’s time for someone else to take over as director of these films. Now, at the same time, I fear that whoever takes over these films won’t be able to match what Bay did with these films in terms of entertainment value, but I’m still interested in seeing these next two films because like with the trilogy that came before it, I loved ‘Age of Extinction’. Sure, this one suffers from being overlong (something that, for the record, never really bothered me with the other films aside from the prolonged finale of ‘Revenge of the Fallen’) but the new additions to the cast are a welcome change of pace that helps give this series a new life and of course the action sequences and visual effects are excellent. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… no one can make these Transformers movies quite like Michael Bay and his films are never boring (even when they’re nearly three hours long). Still, if you’re not one of those people who likes these movies (Though for the record why would you even be watching this new one if you hate the others so much? That’s something that I never understand…), that’s fine but for the love of god, don’t rain on the parade of those who did like it.

Rating: 4/5

Transformers Trilogy (2007-2011) Reviews: Michael Bay Retrospective Part 2

A few days ago, I looked at the almost-complete directorial filmography of Michael Bay from his first film, 1995’s ‘Bad Boys’, to his most recent, 2013’s ‘Pain and Gain’. I say ‘almost complete’ because I skipped over a certain trilogy of films that he directed between 2007 and 2011 because I wanted to save these three for another post that would be published a little bit closer to the debut of Bay’s newest film, which just so happens to be the follow-up to the trilogy of films that I’m looking at today; Michael Bay’s live-action Transformers trilogy based off of the toy line and subsequent media franchise developed by Takara Tomy and Hasbro. This new film, ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’, is the fourth film in the series but features a brand new cast of characters taking over for the cast of the original trilogy, taking place a few years after the events of the third film. It is also reportedly set to be the first in a new trilogy of films however it’s unclear if Bay will return for the next two films, meaning that it’s likely that this will be Michael Bay’s last Transformers film (and on that note, without saying anything further about it, I already know how a lot of you would react to that if that happened considering the typical reception towards these films).

Now I’m going into this new Transformers film with an open mind and that is due to the three films that precede it or, as I like to call them, the most hated film trilogy since the Star Wars prequels. Sure, the first film got decent enough reviews from critics but then came the sequels, both of which have been universally bashed by pretty much everybody in the world. So to those who really, really dislike these movies… prepare to disagree with me quite a bit. Now I’m going on record and saying that when I was younger, I really enjoyed all three of these films and I even passionately defended the two sequels against their harshest critics. Did I think that they were perfect? Absolutely not, but at the same time, I never thought that they were the worst films in the world and I’ve heard plenty of people declare them to be the worst films of all time which for the record I find to be a little too much exaggerated, just like the whole thing that I mentioned last time about Bay being the ‘worst director’ ever. But you see… this is where things start to get interesting for this is actually the first time in a few years since I’ve seen all of these films. I’m very interested in seeing if they hold up as well as I had once thought of them. Will my opinion of them change? Well, you’re just going to have to keep reading to find out.

But first, I’m adding in a little bonus and will be starting this retrospective with a review of the ‘first’ Transformers film… and no, it’s not the one that Bay directed.

THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

Easily one of the most famous cartoons from the 1980’s, ‘The Transformers’ ran for four seasons as it followed the war between the two factions of alien robots known as the Autobots and Decepticons. Midway through the series’ run, there came ‘The Transformers: The Movie’, which some like to refer to as an 84-minute toy commercial. In a way, it probably is but even with that in mind, there are still some pretty interesting aspects about this movie that do make it worthwhile to check out. For one thing, most of the Autobots in this film are actually killed off, including Optimus Prime, which I’m pretty sure must’ve come as a major shock for fans of the show. As for that scene where Prime dies, while I never really watched the original series that much (though I did watch a few episodes before watching this movie), I will admit that this scene is a legitimately sad moment. You really have to give this movie credit; it has major cojones for killing off most of the characters that audiences had grown attached to through the TV series. Because of this, a new set of characters were introduced in this film and became the new main characters of the TV series for the rest of its run.

This movie also has some pretty good voice acting from the likes of Judd Nelson as Hot Rod (who’s sort of the Luke Skywalker of the film… yeah, this film has a lot in common with ‘Star Wars’, by the way), Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron (the revived form of Megatron), and Orson Welles in his final film role as Unicron. While it has been reported that Welles wasn’t too enthusiastic about the project, his voice (which for the record had to be synthesized in post-production because it was very weak when he recorded the dialogue… he died only five days after he finished working on the film) actually is a really nice fit for the role of the planet-sized Transformer. In fact, I would really love to see Unicron appear in the live-action Transformers movies. That would be awesome. As for this film’s soundtrack, which is the very definition of an 80’s film soundtrack, there are a lot of good tunes in the film though at the same time, some feel rather distracting at certain points like during some of the fight scenes. Still, ‘The Transformers: The Movie’ is a pretty solid animated film and while I may not have grown up watching the original TV series this is based on, this will definitely serve as a nostalgic trip down memory lane for those who did.

Rating: 4/5

TRANSFORMERS (2007)

When it first came out in 2007, the first live-action ‘Transformers’ film received generally decent reviews from critics. I mean to be more specific, not all of the reviews were positive but at the end of the day the reviews for this film were much better than the reviews were for its two sequels. However, I kind of get the feeling that the reaction towards this film became a bit more negative after its sequels came out. I really don’t get why that is because, I’m just going to say it… this is a great movie. Nearly a decade after its release, this film still holds up incredibly well. The biggest reason for this is that most of the problems that a lot of people had with the sequels aren’t as big of a problem in this film. The writing is pretty solid in regards to establishing the lore and the main characters and while the film may focus more on the human characters more than the Transformers themselves (something that I’m well aware has been a major disappointment for fans of the franchise), there are at least a few decent character arcs in this film (I’ll get into why that becomes a problem later on in the series when I get to the third film) so it’s not like the human characters in this are completely bland. The acting, for an action movie, is solid enough in this one and in the lead role of Sam Witwicky, Shia LaBeouf actually does a pretty good job here, again mostly because his character does have a solid arc and in this film LaBeouf actually does manage to make the character sympathetic and relatable.

As with any Michael Bay film, the action sequences in this are fantastic and amidst all of the CGI in this film (which for the record is still really good CGI), you do have to appreciate the fact that there were also quite a lot of practical effects in this film as well. My personal favorite sequence of the film would have to be the opening scene where the Decepticon Blackout attacks the U.S. Military at their base in Qatar. This to me was a phenomenal way to start off the movie though again all of the action scenes here are excellent. Also, while this film may be nearly two and a half hours long, the pacing in this is actually pretty good and I never felt that the film dragged at any point. So, with all of that said, the first of Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers’ films still holds up very well upon re-watch and if I were to rank my Top 10 favorite films from 2007, I guarantee that this film would have easily made my Top 10 as I find it to be one of the best action/sci-fi films of this past decade. Even if you didn’t like this film’s sequels, one thing is for certain; this film doesn’t deserve the same hate as those films because it truly is the best of the trilogy and as such, I believe that it is one of Michael Bay’s best films, if arguably not his best.

Rating: 5/5!

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)

I know that last time I said that I believe that ‘Pearl Harbor’ was Michael Bay’s most hated movie because it was based on an actual event in U.S. history and not a toy franchise aimed at kids. But you know the more that I think about it… really there’s no denying it. I think it’s safe to say that ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ has to be the most universally despised summer blockbuster in recent memory, if not all time. I mean, not even the ‘Star Wars’ prequels, for as reviled as they are, got this much criticism. I guarantee you that it will be very hard to find someone who actually likes this film and I’m not talking about the few critics who gave it positive reviews when it came out. I mean someone who actually really likes this film in the five years since it was released… well, guess what… you’ve already found one of them. Now before any of you stop reading this post (and let’s be honest, I’m fairly certain some of you have already done that once you read that I did like this film), let me be clear about something. While I do still really like this film, I don’t necessarily ‘love it’ as I too agree that it has some noticeable problems but to me these problems aren’t really the ones that everyone likes to point out (and believe me, they have done so quite a lot these last few years).

Obviously the main problem with the film lies within the writing but while some have said that this movie’s plot is incomprehensible and that it makes no sense, I feel that it’s a different problem entirely. For you see, the first half of this film is actually quite aimless. There is ‘some’ remnants of a plot in this part of the film, but they literally don’t explain what it is that the Decepticons are looking for, the Matrix of Leadership (the same object that the two factions fought for in ‘The Transformers: The Movie’, by the way) until halfway through the movie (believe me, I’ve timed it; just under one hour and thirty minutes). I mean, that is quite amazing actually that a film this big in scale could go on for nearly one and a half hours and yet have nothing much going in regards to developing the plot. I mean, they do indicate that the Decepticons are looking for a new source of Energon, the Transformers’ main source of energy, but again that doesn’t really become relevant until the movie’s half-way over. But really when it comes to this film’s shortcomings in the writing department, I mostly attribute this to the fact that the filmmakers had to deal with the Writers Guild of America strike that took place from November 2007 to February 2008 so I can see how it makes sense that this film ended up being a little rushed because of that. I bet that if they didn’t have to deal with this strike then the movie could’ve possibly turned out to be much better.

But with all of that said, why then do I still like this movie? Well, to put it bluntly, it’s the main reason why I like most of Michael Bay’s films in the first place; I still found this movie to be very entertaining and again I was never bored by it, though I will say that the final fight in Egypt does go on quite a bit too long. It’s still an awesome action sequence but it could’ve really been trimmed. I never really felt angry while watching this film, and that’s saying a lot considering the multiple aspects of the film that have negatively received by almost everyone who’s seen it, one of the most infamous being the twin Autobots Mudflaps and Skids for ‘embodying racial stereotypes’. Now, I never want to address anything racism-related when it comes to movies because quite frankly I just don’t want to do it so I’m not going to say anything further about these characters. So in short, while I don’t think that this movie is perfect and ultimately the first of Bay’s ‘Transformers’ films is the highly superior movie, I don’t think this one is as bad as a lot of people put it out to be. And hey, if you don’t like it, that’s fine; I’m not trying to spite anyone here by saying that I like this movie. I’m just saying that I still enjoy this movie and most of the problems that people had with it didn’t really bother me that much.

Rating: 3.5/5

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011)

So even though ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ got trashed by critics and audiences, it was still a big success at the box office, meaning that those who really hated it… apparently saw it more than once, which I find quite a bit odd because why then would these people see it again if they hated it so much. This becomes even more peculiar when discussing the next film, ‘Dark of the Moon’. Now the reviews for this film were a bit better than the previous film but for the most part they were still rather negative… and yet this film grossed over $1 billion dollars worldwide. While I’m always glad to see films do successful at the box office, I’m still wondering how this one managed to get into the billion dollar club. Because again, I’ve heard plenty of people say that they hated this film, some of whom hated it just as much as the last film. Well, with that said, if these people hated it so much… why then did they apparently see it at least twice in theaters? It just makes no sense. Now, I was one of those people who did see this movie twice in theaters (both times in 3-D… which was actually well-worth it by the way because while I’m aware that a good chunk of the film was post-converted into the format, at least seventy percent of the film was shot in 3-D so the film was at least intended to be filmed that way) but unlike a lot of people, I did like the film when I first saw it. Having watched it again, I still like it. I like it more than ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ but still not as much as the first film.

This film thankfully improves on the story problems that plagued the previous film. This time, the plot for the film was actually pretty interesting, revolving around how an old Cybertronian spacecraft that had crash-landed on the moon resulted in the Apollo 11 mission, which in this movie was a cover so that the ship could be properly investigated. The ship contained the original leader of the Autobots, Sentinel Prime, and his inventions, a bunch of Pillars used to create a space bridge to transport matter between two points. After Sentinel Prime is awakened, he is then revealed to be working with the Decepticons so that they could restore their planet Cybertron to its former glory. I must say that this whole plot development with Sentinel was actually a pretty interesting one because his betrayal was genuinely unexpected and we did see that it affected Optimus quite a lot because he trusted Sentinel so much. I thought this was all handled very well and that Leonard Nimoy did a great job voicing Sentinel. Though as some have already pointed out, there is kind of a glaring issue when it comes to the first three ‘Transformers’ films; for you see, all three of these films literally have the exact same general plot-points; the Decepticons are looking for an artifact so that they can win the war, Sam Witwicky ends up getting involved in one way or another, etc. Hopefully ‘Age of Extinction’ doesn’t follow the exact same beats as these three films did.

But whereas the story for this film was better than in the last one, this time it comes at the expense of good character development. As I said before, I found that the first ‘Transformers’ film actually did have a decent amount of character development, which is quite impressive actually especially when considering the fact that this is a film about giant robots fighting each other. But basically all of those arcs were already completed after that film so by this point, it becomes rather pointless that a lot of these characters are still around after their arcs were already completed in previous films. Like remember in the first film how Captain William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) was trying to get home to his wife and their newborn daughter? Well, while Lennox does still play a major role in the action for the next two films, his family is never seen again for the rest of the series. As for his friend Epps (Tyrese Gibson)… well, in this film Epps literally doesn’t show up until halfway through the movie. I’m guessing this might’ve been because Gibson was also working on ‘Fast Five’ at the time, but still these two are just there to be a part of the final battle and really nothing else.

Then we get to Sam Witwicky whose character arc was already completed in the first film so at this point he really has nowhere to go having already helped save the world twice. I’ve never been that critical of Shia LaBeouf’s performances in these three movies, but here I will agree that he does start to get a bit too annoying but again, that’s just because he quite frankly doesn’t have much to work with in this. There are multiple times in this movie where Sam complains about how he should be working with the Autobots and not having to live a normal life instead… even though at the beginning of the second film, he was actually looking for things to return to normal for him. Why all of this changed… I have no idea. This movie also kind of hastily switches girlfriends on him, though this is mostly because of a behind-the-scenes incident where Megan Fox reportedly called Michael Bay ‘Hitler’, resulting in him and Spielberg kicking her off the project, replacing her with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Though to the filmmakers’ credit, this change is actually handled pretty well considering the whole situation they were in and while I’m not saying that Whiteley does a ‘great’ job in this, I actually like her more than Fox because I felt that her character Carly came off as being more likable and that her and LaBeouf actually had pretty good chemistry.

But one of my biggest problems with the film actually isn’t anything within the actual film itself. It is actually in regards to how the film was marketed. Before the film came out, I remember watching interviews where the cast and crew were saying that the film was going to be much more serious in tone. Bay even said that the film was going to be like ‘Black Hawk Down’ but with ‘Transformers’… which could’ve been really, really cool. But guess what… that’s not the case with the final product. It’s just another Michael Bay ‘Transformers’ film that does have a fairly large-scale final battle but doesn’t have the emotional depth that those involved were claiming that it had. I feel that some of the main characters should have died in this. Now, the death of Ironhide did work because it was unexpected, but aside from him, only a few of the protagonists are killed off. Maybe they could have killed off Lennox or Epps if only just because, like I said earlier, they were just there to be a part of the action; they already went through their character arcs. But nope… instead, the majority of the main characters survive just as they did in the previous films. This movie tried to be much more serious and while I do give it credit for attempting to do so, it could’ve done a lot better in trying to establish a more serious tone.

But yet again, I never found the film to be boring. The final fight in Chicago is easily the highlight of the movie, which is greatly benefitted by the 3-D. This fight thankfully never feels like it drags at any point which as I said earlier was the main problem with the finale of ‘Revenge of the Fallen’. And yes, the majority of the action is actually reserved for the finale whereas the first half hour of the film is mostly reserved for the story but even then I still found the movie to be pretty engaging. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Michael Bay’s movies are never boring. So ultimately, I feel that ‘Dark of the Moon’ is a superior sequel to ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ but due to some issues it’s still not as good as the first film. I do kind of feel like this movie got some unfair flack, if only because I feel that some were a little biased towards it because of their hate for ‘Revenge of the Fallen’. I’m just going to say it… this film is not ‘Revenge of the Fallen’. It is easily better than that film but again, if you still don’t like this film that’s fine. I still really enjoyed ‘Dark of the Moon’ and I’m eagerly waiting to see ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’. I know I said earlier that I’m going into that film with an open mind, but in reality I’m actually really excited for it and that is because I love this trilogy of films.

Rating: 4/5

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) review

Out of all of the delayed films of 2013, 'G.I. Joe Retaliation' has the most unique reason for why it was pushed back. It was originally set to hit theaters in June 2012, but was then pushed back just a month before it was set to come out to March 2013. While official reports say that Paramount did this in order to convert the film to 3-D, there are other reports stating that the move was made in order for re-shoots to add more scenes with Channing Tatum's Duke because apparently in the first cut of the film, he was killed off early on. While I'm not one for spoilers, I just want to address if this was true or not. As far as I can tell, they didn't change anything. Duke still dies at the beginning of the film and even if they did do re-shoots, it probably would have ended up the same way. So way to go Paramount, you just wasted 9 months and messed up both the film and toy industry... just to convert a film to 3-D and let's be honest, has there ever been a good post-converted 3-D film? There are none that I can think of.

But back to the review. This film comes in the wake of its predecessor, 2009's 'The Rise of Cobra', which did not receive much of a positive reception from both critics and audiences. In fact, dare I say it, most people hated the film. As for me, I thought the movie was okay. If you could get past the multiple flashbacks and some rather poor CGI, it was a fun little popcorn flick. So going into this film, I was hoping it would turn out better than the first film. Does it succeed at that? Well, for the most part, it does. Sure, at the end of the day, this is really nothing more than a mindless popcorn flick. But to the film's credit, it manages to improve on most of the problems of its predecessor even though it falls victim to some new problems that arise from it.

At the end of 'The Rise of Cobra', the terrorist organization Cobra had successfully infiltrated the White House by having their disguise specialist Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) take the place of the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce) through the use of nanomite technology. When in office, the false President frames Cobra's enemy, the special ops unit G.I. Joe, for stealing warheads and orders a military strike on them, eliminating the majority of the team except for Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), and Flint (D.J. Cotrona). As Cobra begins to take over the country, the three team up with the other remaining members of G.I. Joe, including Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and his apprentice Jinx (Elodie Yung), in order to stop Cobra from taking over the world.

The biggest advantage that this film has over its predecessor is that it's not as cheesy and over-the-top. I may have never seen the 'G.I. Joe' cartoon from the 80's, but this film seems more in line with that show than 'Rise of Cobra' was. Jon M. Chu also does a better job directing than 'Rise of Cobra's Stephen Sommers, not cutting to a flashback every five minutes. However, the plot does get a bit convoluted at times, like with the character arc for Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun), whose return from a supposed death in the first film is never explained. The way I see it, the only reason they brought him back was so that Snake Eyes could have someone to fight with. The fact that Chu's resume mainly consists of dance movies does seem questionable for the director of an action movie, but his experience with dance choreography does lead to some really awesome action sequences, although the hand-to-hand combat scenes are kind of filmed/edited poorly.

In regards to casting, it's much better here than it was in the original, led by Dwayne Johnson, who is excellent here as Roadblock. But in regards to the rest of the characters, the writing is pretty weak. The character of Flint is so unmemorable but is apparently so important that he's one of the main characters. You could have just given that role to Channing Tatum's Duke. But of course, he's killed off early, which just felt unnecessary for two reasons. To his credit, Tatum does a better job here than in the previous film and he does have really good chemistry with 'The Rock' so when he's killed off, the film just isn't the same without him there. Cobra Commander (not played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is just there because... he's Cobra Commander. Seriously, every time he appears, he just walks on screen for a few minutes and then leaves. But the saddest thing here is that Bruce Willis is not given anything to do as General Joe Colton, the original leader of G.I. Joe. They could have cast anybody else in the role and it would have had the same effect.

 

So all in all, 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' is still no masterpiece. Thankfully, it's not as ridiculously cheesy as its predecessor, but the film suffers from a convoluted plot when in reality, the story is fairly simple. It's just G.I. Joe fighting Cobra... that's all there is. This is compared to the plot of the first film which, when looking back, wasn't actually that complicated at all and was pretty easy to follow. While the casting is much better here than in the last film, most of the characters aren't given much to do or, in the case of guys like Channing Tatum, killed off too quickly. In the end, 'Retaliation' is just a slight bit better than 'The Rise of Cobra' but I don't think it's that bad. It's an enjoyable popcorn flick... just don't go in expecting too much out of it.

 

Rating: 3/5