G.I. Joe - Retaliation Review

Tonight, I managed to get around to going to the cinema to watch G.I. Joe - Retaliation.  As there are similarities between G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K. I thought it would be a good idea to give a quick review on the movie - don't worry, I'll try not to spoil the plot for you if you haven't seen it.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it was far better than I expected and in many ways better than the original G.I. Joe movie.  As many of you will know, I've written a script based on M.A.S.K. and I've always imagined that if when it is made, that it should look, sound and feel as real as possible.

In the original G.I. Joe, much of the movie was CGI.  I'm not anti-CGI, per say, however I do feel it was overused in the original and overshadowed the whole movie.  In this movie, there isn't anywhere near as much - or if there is, then it is of such a quality that you don't notice.

Although not entirely real - there were still a few CGI moments - many of the vehicles were real 

and this helped bring the movie to life in a way that the Submarines, for example, in the original didn't.

The Cobra Hovercraft and Roadblock's Tank were just amazing and I sat there thinking "yeah, I want one of those".

The weapons were great and all of the action worked well and fitted with the story line.

Obviously, this was G.I. Joe 2 - a sequel to the first movie - but there were times when it didn't feel completely like a sequel.

Let me explain -

The G.I. Joe toy line has been around in one way or another in the US for a number of decades - so Americans grew up with the tag line "An American Hero".  The feeling of this movie has moved back, in my opinion, to the G.I. Joe's being American rather than the Multi-National Group it was in the first movie.

I'm not saying there is anything bad with it being an American Fighting Unit but it's a big change that may not go down very well in some markets.

One of the great things about M.A.S.K. was the Multi-National team and not all of the action took place in America.  This is why I believe it was as popular as it was and still is on an International level.  The fact that the UK comic lasted 80 issues before merging with The Eagle plus all of it's holiday specials is testament to it's reach and longevity outside of the US.

The other reason it seemed like a completely different entity from the first is the lack of recurring characters/actors from the first movie.  If I'm honest, the only two characters I remember from G.I. Joe from when I was younger are Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow (who I always mixed up with Shadow Dancer from the Arcade Game of the same name) so as long as these Ninja's are in the movies - I'll continue to watch and enjoy them.

The acting was good and the story line was great - apart from a few discrepancies/issues - but this didn't detract from my enjoyment of this great movie.

If you haven't already seen it, I'd highly recommend it!