Movie review: Big bang ninjas in ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’

The first half hour of this 110-minute action nods to '80s movie excess, as director John M. Chu sets out to establish that THIS GI Joe reboot isn’t taking the meandering path 2009’s “Rise of Cobra” tracked to exquisitely fumbling results.
 
Chu’s previous outings like “Step Up 2: The Streets,” “Step Up 3D” and (I kid you not) “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” aren’t going to bag any critical auteur awards, but boy, does this guy know how to arrange a visually dazzling set piece and then dynamite it all to glorious smithereens. 
 
Point being: It’s difficult not to have fun watching The Rock, ninjas, and big explosions sautéed in testosterone bluster.
 
Oh, sure, it comes at a cost. There’s narrative dissonance up the wazoo on this one (a dead-end side story featuring rapper RZA as The Blind Master, and a gratuitous recon via a low-cut, high-slit ball dress), especially after you stagger out of the theater, brain still reeling from the astounding explosions and acrobatic swordfights.
 
But, and this is the important thing: so what? About as subtle as a People’s Elbow by The Rock, the first GI Joe movie’s mistake was thinking that we cared about the angst and inter-relational drama of these '80s Hasbro characters. Well, not this one.


 
Back in the original animated airing days, all we Martial Law kids cared about were the intense smash and kabooms between Cobras and Joes, mostly so we could duplicate them with our own toys. A kind of status symbol among kids of the late '80s, your coolness rating rose in direct proportion to the size of your action figure collection, like Barbie and My Little Pony did for girls.
 
“Retaliation” shoots the introductions as briefly as it can, with Duke (Channing Tatum) and Roadblock (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) playing videogames at the latter’s home. Then it’s on to the twist when the G.I. Joes are framed for stealing nuclear warheads from Pakistan. Unknown to them, a Cobra operative in disguise has already replaced the US president (Jonathan Pryce).
 
The Joes fall to a coordinated blitzkrieg Cobra attack and the few survivors include Roadblock, Flint (DJ Cotrona), and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki).
 
This reboot delivers the smart mouth attitude, the macho swagger, the catchphrases marinated in cordite and brag that had every kid yelling “Lalalalala!” or “Yo Joe!” back in the day. The Rock and his major ensemble members (including Bruce Willis’ General Joe Colton) deliver all this speech with timing, drama, and well-executed action hero cred.
 
The Rock knows! And we should send Mr. Dwayne Johnson to fix all these summer blockbuster aspirants with his pneumatically-carved, WWE gravitas. I can smell what you’re cooking, Mr Johnson. . . it’s extra crispy.
 
Meantime, in a German prison for super villains, Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) and Firefly (Ray Stevenson, as an ex-GI Joe turned saboteur) infiltrate the prison to free Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey). And this is where the fun begins as Storm Shadow is injured during the operation, requiring him to go to the Himalayas to recuperate. Why there? There’s no explanation. Maybe it’s a special day spa for ninjas?
 
Anyway, the treatment works and he’s soon on the mend. Good thing, too, since Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and his pupil Jinx (Elodie Yung) are hunting him as vengeance for killing their old Hard Master (yes, that’s the guy’s title).
 
Do you like ninjas? You will love them here, because there are shadow warrior battles that are painted in nail-biting, edge-of-seat flying, heart-pumping awesomeness. In fact, there are ninjas galore, and they figure in one of the two best action sequences here as Snake Eyes and Jinx engage in combat against dozens of Storm Shadow’s adept ninjas that’s part-swordsmanship, part-Cirque Du Soleil. Against a mountainside cliff they swing and strike, swaying on ropes, zooming down ziplines.

Incidentally, these two characters also provide the most entertaining – albeit damnably confusing — side drama of the movie with a surplus of physicality and a minimum of speaking parts; zero for Snake Eyes, of course.
 
The second-best action sequence is the finale that mixes close quarters combat and a Hasbro fanboy’s wet dream of signature Cobra and Joe tanks in armor against armor dogfights (yep, grandiose explosions included).
 
Hey, I used to spend hours playing with my Cobra H.I.S.S., Cobra Black Mamba, and Cobra Water Moccasin, so seeing them onscreen is like greeting an old, hoary-headed friend. I also had a Zartan UV-reactive action figure, by the by, so Zartan’s (Arnold Vosloo) 10-second screen time as himself (and not the US president) sucked big time. 
 
What you’ll love about “Retaliation” is the excellent pacing and the eye bleed action sequences. World domination never seemed so droll and deadly when played with a game of nuclear chicken. Why? Again, like Lady Jaye’s all-American parts out of camo uniform, it’s gratuitous, it’s unsubtle, but it’s excessively entertaining. Especially with the elbow jabs at North Korea.   
 
Even the characterization verges on the caricaturish, though The Rock, Lady Jaye, and Storm Shadow make the most of their stock in trade appearances with a measure of thespian flamboyance.
 
You’ll hate how the supporting cast seems to be tailor-made into 2D clichés. Was it to make the major players seem more alive? Less 80s Hasbro and more 21st century? Could be. By far the biggest culprit is Ray Stevenson’s (HBO’s “Rome,” “The Punisher”) dynamite-happy Firefly, who had such a bad Midwest/American South accent I thought he was Australian.
 
You’ll overlook all this, however, since this movie claims a place far above the first movie with swords, fists, and blazing guns. It’ll be a cult film for future geeks, prickly plot disconnects and all.
 
You can bring your pre-adolescent boys to this one and watch as a summer movie afflicts them with dreams of decimating terrorists or taking up the yell of world domination under the very cool red banner of Cobra. 
 
I’m still hankering for a live-action movie with Serpentor, but that’s just the fanboy in me. - YA, GMA News
 

“GI Joe: Retaliation” opens in cinemas on March 30. Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures