Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is Roadblock in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” Photo by Courtesy Paramount Pictures
"G.I. Joe: Retaliation" is a live-action version of Hasbro toy soldiers caught in a Rambo-on-steroids videogame. Acting isn't required here. And an actual story would make this film too intellectual. In fact, a story and acting might even get in the way of what this movie is about--what big men with big guns can do. Ooh-rah!
But to be fair and balanced, equal opportunity in the new millennium of filmmaking means female combatants. Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), the one notable woman in the unit, has long lush hair, large eyes and looks good detonating explosives. She can bark out the banal dialogue screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick provide as well as any of her male compatriots.
Let me introduce you to the inner G.I. Joe team. Captain Duke Hauser (Channing Tatum) leads the pack. He's funny and likes to tickle little kids. He has an easy smile and broad shoulders--he's Magic Mike in commando gear.
Roadblock (Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson) is second in command. He has even bigger shoulders than Duke, and his biceps are moving forms of art, complete with riveting tattoos.
The inner circle also includes Flint (D. J. Cotrona), who likes to joke around; Snake Eyes (Park Ray), a mysterious black-masked Ninja; and the aforementioned Lady Jaye, who has father issues. Rounding out the team is General Joe Colton (Bruce Willis), a please-call-me-Joe-commander who lives in the shadows of retirement, but keeps his home well stocked for emergencies.
Like all good soldiers, the G.I. team follows orders. They don't question them.
The president (Jonathan Pryce) sends the elite G.I. Joe team on a top-secret mission, which goes awry. An unknown threat neutralizes their unit. Roadblock puts the pieces together and suspects that the person he voted for wants them dead. But why? (It doesn't really matter why; this provides the necessary cover to blow stuff up.)
While the Joes are incapacitated, their arch nemesis Cobra Commander, led by another masked man (Luke Bracey), executes a plan for world domination.
The impassivity of the story and the wooden expressions of the G.I. Joe team make it plausible for brutality to be a matter of routine. And you get to see a Kama-Sutra version of violence in every position and with all kinds of weapons. Knives. Swords. Hatchets. Pistols. Revolvers. Machine guns. Tanks. Missiles. Nukes.
Miraculously, death is not a bloody affair. And equally inexplicable, killing is disassociated from pain. Under the direction of Jon M. Chu ("Justin Bieber: Never Say Never"), the movie shows us bloodless, pain-free violence.
The killing is hideously graphic, yet because it has no emotion (with one exception not to be revealed here), it has no impact on us. We feel nothing toward the victims of death; we have no empathy. As soon as one person gets it, we're looking forward to the next shoot out. The scenes of carnage are big, overwrought spectacles for the delight of the audience.
"G.I. Joe: Retaliation" deletes the morality-play dimension. It's impersonal, almost an abstract exercise in brutalization. In fact, at one point Duke and Roadblock play a video war game on a giant flat screen in the living room of Roadblock's house, positioned under the largest flag that can fit on a wall. This scene, more than any other, explains it all.
Killing is a patriotic sport. Ooh-rah!
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