JoeCanuck
General Section => General Joe Talk => Topic started by: BHMike on March 27, 2013, 10:10:08 PM
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I just got back from Retaliation, and in my honest opinion, if THIS version of Joe is what we get from on, I'm 100% OK with that. So many references to the comics in this, and some well placed nods to long time JoeFans.
Cobra Commander was very well done in my opinion, and the Snake Eyes / Stormy storyline rocked. THIS is so much better than Rise Of Cobra. ...and they wrap that up quickly to get on with this one.
I honestly plan on seeing it again this weekend, it was that good!
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Saw it today too. They did a much better job with the characters and story. I wish Bruce Willis was in it a little more than he was. I was surprised and happy to see that Mouse is an actual character in the movie, not just a made up figure. The only scene that I didn't like was: Duke and Roadblock are on a gun range bantering back and forth(amusing) but the range looked like it belonged on an army base in the states complete with english signage not out in the middle of a foreign desert where they were waiting for extraction from a mission.
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i have only 2 complaints, one the fact that Flint is underused (i can see why Hama called him 'meh' - it's cuz he's so underdeveloped.) and clearly suffering from the same problem as Cyclops in X2 and X3 - he's being overshadowed by the bigger star character - Roadblock in this and Wolverine in X2 and X3.
my other complaint is the stupid way they keep shortening people's codenames. first film it was 'Rip' for Ripcord and a few times 'Snake' for Snake Eyes, this time it's the especially lame 'Block' for Roadblock and 'Storm' for Storm Shadow as well as 'Snake' again.
other than that, i loved it. It does actually seem to leave open the possibility for Scarlett, Heaavy Duty, Ripcord or Breaker to return since their fates/status is never addressed...
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my other complaint is the stupid way they keep shortening people's codenames. first film it was 'Rip' for Ripcord and a few times 'Snake' for Snake Eyes, this time it's the especially lame 'Block' for Roadblock and 'Storm' for Storm Shadow as well as 'Snake' again.
I actually liked that.... It makes it seem more "real" to me....
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my complete review.
Seriously, I am going to be discussing the whole movie here, including the elephant in the room and i am not messing about with spoiler tags, so if you don't want to see me discussing the ins and outs of a Timber wolf's bum look away now.
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Still here?
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Okay.
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So, the first two things you probably want to know are 'Is it better than Retaliation?' and 'Does Duke die?'
Answers are: yes.
A brief precis with fancy website-esque graphics and a voice over explain that since the end of 'The Nano-mite Wars' Duke's been leading the Joes and that his team includes Roadblock, Flint, Lady Jaye and Snake Eyes and that Cobra Commander and Destro are locked up in Germany and that Storm Shadow and Zartan remain at large.
This leads into a scene that's pretty much like those bits at the start of a Bond movie - Joes on a mission in North Korea, getting a defector out. We meet Duke, Flint, Roadblock, Jaye and Mouse. We then cut off to the meat and spuds of the movie, leading in with Roadblock and Duke playing Modern Warfare 3 and Duke sucking ass at it. The two Joes then hear about the Pakistani President having been assassinated and riots in the country and the threat of extremists getting their mitts on Pakistan's nukes. President Zartan sends the Joes to secure the nukes.
Then, of course, comes the betrayal. The Joes camp is attacked by Apache gunships and, yes, Duke dies. The guy is next to a vehicle hit by an Apache and blown -literally - sky high. Dude is clearly dead.
Storm Shadow busts Cobra Commander out of that jail in Germany, with help from Firefly, but they leave Destro behind (we don't see him properly, it's a guy in a suit in a tank). This scene is actually quite cool, wrongfooting the viewer as it does at the start and with the Warden making jokes about CC, Destro and his other prisoner being his 'fantasy football' team.
Flint, Jaye and Roadblock make their way back to the US and hook up with Colton, who doubts Jaye's claim that the President's NOT the President as she discusses intricacies of linguistic nuance and body mannerisms. Roadblock produces the dogtags of the dead Joes to argue why Colton has a better reason to go after the Prez than crossed hands. Colton picks one of the tags up, reading off the name "'Conrad Hauser' - Duke. Your captain." he says. See? Duke is dead. Deader than Disco, A-line flares with pockets in the knees or a doornail.
The scene that was all over the trailers of Snake Eyes and Jinx fighting the Red Ninjas is freaking awesome and follows the silent fight between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.
This leads to the revelation of the truth about the death of the Hard Master seen in flashbacks in ROC. In a manner similar to the Marvel comics, Storm Shadow was framed: by none other than Zartan. Dude didn't even use Storm Shadow's sword like Comic!Zartan used Storm Shadow's own arrow. Storm Shadow then joins forces with Snake Eyes and Jinx and tehy head to the US and hook up with the Joes for the Really Big Fight at the End.
Which is pretty damn sweet. Roadblock beats up Firefly - who also dies. Storm Shadow kills Zartan, Jaye and Colton save the real President, Cobra Commander escapes (natch) and the surviving Joes are given medals and a memorial is unveiled, neatly setting things up for Joe 3.
There's clearly a lot of material left on the cutting room floor. The scene in several trailers/spots of the Predator drone flying over the desert is cut - but later referenced; the credits at the end play out over clips from the film, but include two clips of Jinx and Blind Master in long white coats which we never see them wearing, other clips in the end credits show material from the bar scene which is used in the trailer - such as the bit where Flint's got his shirt off - and that's not shown. Another clip shows more of the Jinx/Snake Eyes fight not in the film. The credits themselves list 'Grunt', 'Clutch' and 'Havoc' (i presume this was the guy called 'Cross Country' in some reports) but those guys never seem to get named in the film, or if they do, I missed it.
Dwayne Johnson is good as Roadblock, as is Adrianne Palicki as Jaye. Elodie Yung and DJ Cotrona do their best as Flint and Jinx, but are underwritten and underdeveloped. Jinx being outshone by Snake Eyes and Flint suffers the Cyclops Effect. or possibly that should be the Wolveirne Effect - being overshadowed by the bigger star in the role that's supposed to be secondary. Flint gets overshadowed by Roadblock in the same way Cyclops was overshadowed by Wolverine in X2.
Cobra Commander is MUCH better in his more traditional looking attire. Ray Steveson is good as Firefly - though his background from the website as an ex-Joe is not hinted at at all. Baroness is completely omitted from the film and not even mentioned unlike Destro, who it seems likely died. Ripcord, Scarlett, Heavy Duty and Breaker are all ignored. The Joes seem to be back to being an All-American unit, which will no doubt placate the whiners.
The film reins back much of the sci-fi elements of ROC, the nanomites are only briefly mentioned in the voice over at the start and again when Zartan does that knife-across-the face bit seen in the trailer. The Delta 6 suits are gone, so are the black RIA suits and the Cobra pulse guns. The HISS tanks, the tank Roadblock drives (Ripsaw tank?) Cobra Commander's getaway chopper and the Joes (new) VTOL transports are the only sci-fi esque elements really other than the Zeus kinetic-kill weapon satellites Cobra use to obliterate London and threaten Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Paris, Delhi and Tel Aviv. They even rein back the suggestion of ROC that this is (to paraphrase X-Men) the not-too-distant future (or as TV Tropes would say; Next Sunday AD) to some time much clsoer to now, with a reference to 2015 as being in a couple of years' time.
Main complaints: the stupid shortening of people's codenames. After ROC kept shortening Ripcord to 'Rip' and occassionally shortened Snake Eyes to 'Snake', this time they not only use 'Snake', they also refer to Roadblock as 'Block' (WTF?!) and Storm Shadow to 'Storm'.
My other beefs are: it could do with being a bit longer, it all seems a tad rushed. Flint is underused and the relationship between him and Jaye is barely hinted at (basically Flint tells Jaye she looks good in the red dress and cheekily pervs on her reflection in a TV screen) that and I'm (natch) torqued that London gets obliterated. S'pose it does make a change from New York, LA or DC...
Overall I give it 9/10
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I agree with Sundance, after having time to reflect on the movie, I did feel something was amiss or lacking and I think it WAS the fact the movie felt rushed. They could have spent more time developing the story and let it play out more. Hence giving more screen time to other characters including Flint.
They also could have showed the other Joe compounds being raided(which was eluded to) and I thought they could have referenced a bit more of the previous movies characters because at one point my brother leaned over and said; "So Scarlette's not in this movie just Duke and where are the other guys like Baroness, Heavy Duty and Hawk? I thought Dennis Quad signed a three movie contract?" He was also pissed Mr. WOOTANG(Blind Master) sounded like he had a speech impediment(Elmer Fud) when he talked. I agree. It was a little distracting for such a cool character.
Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed it and am excited to see what they bring for the third installment. I'm just happy to see they are starting to zero in on the GIJoe mythos I grew up with and love.
GO SEE IT!
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If you loved the comic you'll enjoy the movie.
It's been synopsized to death above, so I won't repeat.
I had no problem with the shortening of code names. They added authenticity and realism at the loss of 'proper nostalgia'. meh.
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apparently Retaliation took over $100 million US at the global box office this weekend and Hollywood trade paper Variety was reporting that a third movie has been greenlit.
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Saw it and liked it, but wasn't as good as I had hoped.
I think they threw a few too many characters into the mix and frankly Zartan as the president really didn't work for me this time. I also would have loved to see more indepth story on the Cobra special forces. Instead they are even worse than the cartoon versions when it comes to ease of defeat and lack of any sort of development as a threat.
Duke/Roadblock was a good relationship that worked really well. Colton was an absolute joke. I'm sorry but Willis does not play military well at all, especially a general. The one saving grace? His home/armory. Lady Jaye was good, and well developed for such limited time, Flint was the exact opposite.
Nice little nods throughout to the cartoon, and I like them going back to bullets. Loved the vehicles!!!! Hey Hasbro!!! If you had made any effort to have the Ghost Hawk II even remotely close to the movie version instead of the 90s day-glo you gave us, it would have flown off the shelves.
Overall a good "action" film, but nothing outstanding or even really memorable/must see again, for non-fans. Glad to hear it made over $100 million already. It should surpass ROC for final total, and at least we get another movie out of the deal as well.
Let's hope for Shipwreck in the third movie!!
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...Loved the vehicles!!!! Hey Hasbro!!! If you had made any effort to have the Ghost Hawk II even remotely close to the movie version instead of the 90s day-glo you gave us, it would have flown off the shelves.
You can also add the blue/purple Hiss Tank they gave us to that list.. ::)
(http://www.thehdroom.com/images/news/10729a.jpg)
(http://thetoyverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IMG_4183_640x480.jpg)
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Better than RoC.
Colton's house deserves to become a playset.
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Well.............
...to quote Mr. Horse: "No sir.........I don't like it."
I think there was an okay movie somewhere in there, it was just mudsucked by BS.
My main problem with the movie was the 3D. The AVX showing I saw convinced me of one thing: I'm now an avowed opponent of 3D films. The 3d gimmick made watching all the action sequences difficult. Hard to focus on anything, hard to keep track of anything.
It committed the unpardonable sin of cinema: it was distracting and it took me out of the story and the rapport for the characters. I gave up......repeatedly, in watching this thing....told myself I'll give it a go when it comes out on Blu-Ray in a few months. A movie shouldn't do that.
We waited 9 MONTHS for this nonsense........and, well, I'm glad it didn't give me a headache.
Story-wise.....it was a TV movie plot with a feature film budget. Its plain to see they mudsucked GIJOE: Renegades for this movie......pulled the same basic premise from the cartoon. I kept asking myself, is that the ONLY story they could come up with??
There's a lot of really bone-headed things in the movie.....the one big one that struck me, made me actually laugh is right at the climax: COBRA's Zeus orbital guns blow up when Roadblock stops the countdown.
Okay.
So, COBRA technology throws a "tantrum" when its shut off and not allowed to do what it's designed to do?? Yeah, COBRA Quality control--right on!! Why are they a threat again???
Yeah, that's been seen before, but its still pretty stupid. And funny.
Other than that, the story is pretty light weight, the missile launch sequence and the bombardment of London was kind of neat.....but......the rest was fluff.
( and to hit THAT point home, the end of the movie has a bizarre omission: we see the mourning the loss of the Joes, we celebrate the heroes that save the day........but what about London? Untold history wiped away, Ten's of thousands likely dead......and no mention of them after the fact. Nothing of THE greatest terrorist attack in history. Wow.)
Characters.
<Sigh>. Big beefs here. And more failed story points.
So, GIJOE is now demoted to having the mostly the supporting cast run the missions from now on? When I think of GIJOE RAH, Duke is the cornerstone. Like him or not, he's the face of it, the main guy.
But he's dead, and worse than that.......they gave him a personality in this movie and THEN they kill him. WTF????
What was the point? Get the audience to care about a character and then yank the same character away from us? Why should we invest any rapport in the movie? Big mistake.
They could have run the story that the Joes are ALL captured, sentenced to that cryo-prison, and then have the guys that escape come rescue them. Does the same service as "getting rid of the Joes" for most of the story, but allows you to use them again at a later time. Instead......we get force-fed Roadblock.
Now, I like the Rock, he's got great charisma, and screen presence....but he was shoehorned into this movie. This is a Rock-vehicle....tailored to be "the star". But I've NEVER seen Roadblock as a leader of the team, he's strictly been a supporting cast member to my mind. Killing of Duke and others is like taking Batman and Alfred out of a Batman movie and running it with the rest of the supporting cast from then on. The guts of it have been ripped out.
Why?? Its an awkward promotion for a character that.......well, is redundant. We had Heavy Duty in the first flick, and then we get his clone in the second flick. ( Of course, I know the deal is that its the other way around: RB came first and HD is the clone, so to speak) This is the inherent problem with GIJOE's translation to live-action cinema....the roster is vast and redundant at the same time. You can plug practically any 2 or three characters into essentially the same functional role within the movie......and it doesn't take long before the question becomes......why??
And it doesn't stop with the Rock.
Bruce Willis was wasted in this movie......really quite useless. He was a piece of furniture.....a plot device like any of the guns.( of which he has the LATEST gear tucked away all over his home. Okaaaay) His character didn't grow, change or really do much of anything that any of the other characters could have been contrived to do. Now, the same thing is with the Rock.......he has a presence......he doesn't have a story arc. There's no growth.
The same thing with Jinx.
And Mouse.
And COBRA Commander, and Firefly--though they were just there to be the bad guys, they were pretty shallow as such. Sure, its nice to see CC looking all properly "CC", but again.....what WAS the point. His emotional effect in the movie was the exactly same quality as in any of the pre-publicity still........he just. looked. like. Cobra Commander.
That's all he does.
No, this isn't Citizen Kane, its not high-cinema.......its a product. But it came across as pretty vapid product to me......real soap-bubble thin. All it would have taken is a couple of throw-away lines, a casual inference or three, here and there and these characters would have a modicum of ( at least the APPEARANCE of ) some depth to them.
The ONLY character with any kind of genuine story arc to them is Storm Shadow. But even then, I never really caught why he signed up from COBRA in the first place.
Zartan could also be considered to have an arc.....but he arrived at the end exactly as he started out.....still a scene-chewing bad-guy.
So, really........for me......anything this movie offered was given away in the previews before I even walked into the theatre. They held this back 9 months to give it an awful 3D post-conversion. It is exactly what I'd jadedly expected it to be: a two hour-long toy commercial with a weak fluff story, really dumb story-point /franchise choices.....and a smattering of "lipstick and mascara on the pig" to appease the fans.
I like said before...I sincerely think there's an okay movie somewhere in there, but once again, its (still) not REALLY a GIJOE movie.
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I didn't like it. I'm not gonna write a long review or anything but I will point out some reasons why I didn't like it. Cobra commander looked cool but he barely did anything in the movie.
destro was left in a tank full of water to die. Firefly is supposed to be a sabotage expert/special ops kind of Guy. One would only assume that some one of his job type would be in top physical shape but they chose a 50 year old fat alchiholic who can with stand a direct blow from a speeding suv! !!!!! Give me a break. Zartan dies?
As for the good guys in the movie. Duke dies right away and not even in a big fight or against a real cobra charecter. Agent mouse? Why give a Guy a name when he dies right away. Flint had potential but Duane the rock steals the spot light. Lady jaye had a fine ass but the rock gets in the way of that too. Bruce Willis was alright . where was ripcord scarlett?
Snake eyes jinx and storm shadow were the best in the film. Oh I almost forgot how cobra blew up the eifel tower and terrorized France in the ROC film yet zartan disguised as the president was able to empower cobra without the entire nation rioting in protest. Oh well who cares they only blew up england this time. I wonder what country cobra will decimate in the next film USA perhaps??? Well now I'm rambling. Overall the movie was packed with action but as far Gi Joe goes I was dissapointed.
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i've never seen the point of 3D and generally avoid it, so i saw it in 2D. there's the lesson for you...
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i've never seen the point of 3D and generally avoid it, so i saw it in 2D. there's the lesson for you...
That is also what I think. For me 3D is just a little gizmo that you don't absolutely need to be able to enjoy to the fullest the movie that you're watching. Nothing more.
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Loved it! Would never say it is perfect but i enjoyed it!
Don't care about the shortened nicknames (just look at this board with grunt and LJ). It was a fine ride.
And Duke's body was not seen! I saw the explosion and all but he could come back.
Thank goodness!
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Anyone with a few hours to kill, I guest hosted the Talk Without Rhythm GI Joe Special (http://tworpodcast.blogspot.ca/2013/04/tworp-special-gi-joe-with-ryan-costello.html). We talk Retaliation, and basically go through my understanding of the history of GI Joe.
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I liked it. I'll buy it when it comes out on DVD but it's not a movie I can watch again and again.
The plot was better then the first one but still nothing amazing. It felt more like a bridge from the first blunder to Joe 3. If they stay on the same path then come Joe 3 we could have a decent movie.
Like most have said , there was no reason to shorten up the code names and I found it unrealistic. Case in point, I was in a band called Pablum. My best friend Mikey was Dr. Twitch, Brian was Schecky, Devon was Hugh G Member, Jay was Father Nelson and I was Chef Morgardee. When we were on stage we never shortened the stage names but off stage we used our real names (Mike, Brian, Devon, Jay and Dave). If the movie wanted to capture the feel of code names vs real life interaction I feel they should have used the code names in battle and real names in the bunker, with the exception of Storm Shadow who should be address as Storm Shadow by everyone with the exception of his Ninja Clan / family.
Speaking of names, what up with Adrianne Palicki as Jaye being called "Brenda"? I must have missed something.
Also Adrianne Palicki needs some acting advise when it comes to her eye moments. She flutters or rolls far too much. It almost feels like a drinking game. Daniel Radcliffe made all those Harry Potter movies and did a fine job with the character but it was until he left the Harry Potter franchise and had a new director (The Women in Black) point out to him that he needs to stop breathing with his mouth. Adrianne needs a director to teach her to control her eyes a bit bettor if she wants to advance her acting career.
All in all it was fun. Nothing amazing, but still a fun ride. Noe bring me Major Bludd for Joe 3 and I'll be happy.
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it was some stupid 'joke' by Colton to call her 'Brenda' because she was a woman.