Ten Statements About....G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (2013)

"What does it say about you that you prefer hanging out
with me instead of Seinna Miller, mate?"

"Drive it like you stole it!”
“Dude, as your friend, I’m telling you...you need a new catchphrase."

1) Oh, Lord, is this film soulless and without anything resembling life.  What little energy this film has comes from the performances of people like Dwayne Johnson, Jonathan Pryce and Walter Goggins.  Without those performances, all we have is a string of place settings designed solely to get us from one 3-D set piece to the next.

Which is doubly puzzling considering how poor the 3-D transfer and the action sequences are.

2) For a film that really, really wants to be a twisty comic book action thriller, there’s very little plot getting in the way of the narrative.  So much is made of the action sequences that the quieter moments seem forced.  There’s a definite sense of  director Jon M. Chu dancing around in an effort to hide the fact that there’s nothing inside this film other than big shouty things and explosions.

3) The MacGuffin that the film is built around--a way to wreck nuclear-weapon-level havoc without getting nuclear-weapon-level fallout--is potentially really good, but it’s wasted pretty badly.  Far too little attention is given to the build up to the launching of the devices (that actually happens off-screen) that when said device is finally utilized, we almost forget that it was an element in the story.

"Forget about the star--check out THE TOY!"

4) Is it just Fox not wanting to pay out the sequel clause that led to them pretty much discarding a number of the characters from the previous film?  I’m sure, for example, that Rachel Nichols couldn’t have been too much more expensive than Adrienne Palicki, and we would have had the previous film to give us the sense that there is still characterization going on.  Without anyone but Channing Tatum (who’s gone at the end of the first act) on the heroes’ side that we’re familiar with at he beginning of the movie, there’s no way for the viewers to follow the plot.

5) And since we’re on the subject of returning villains--why did they bother bringing back Arnold Vosloo at all, given he literally gets about a minute of screentime by himself, forty seconds of which is silent?

6) The sheer fact of the matter is that the characters, both Joes and Cobras, are ciphers.  Sure, Palicki gets something akin to a speech explaining why she became a Joe, and there’s a big ol’ expository dump that explains what Elodie Yung’s Jinx is doing hanging out with Snake Eyes, but mostly it’s just actors striving to be two-dimensional.  Hell, Flint is such a non-entity that the hinted at romance with Lady Jaye never gets past the hints we see.  It’s as if the movie assumes that we will fill in the blanks because Jaye and Flint were romantic interests in the cartoon.

7) I don’t know which is worse--that the film couldn’t be bothered to be consistent with the first film when it shows the no longer destroyed Eiffel Tower, or that a major country is flat out obliterated and never really mentioned again.

"So that's where all our characterization went!"

8) You know, RZA, I understand you love martial arts and probably enjoyed being the leader of the clan that Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow and Jinx belonged to...but you’re not very good.  And given how much expostory dialogue you’re given, being good is kind of a prerequisite..

9) Even though Ray Stevenson attacks his role as Firefly with gusto, I really have to wonder why he is here instead of, let’s say, Destro or, especially, The Baroness (you can’t tell me that Stevenson in a grungy mask is preferable to Sienna Miller in tight leather).  It’s not like Firefly is as well known a character as the other Cobra villains he replaces.  Plus the script plays outside the box with Firefly, giving him these robotic napalm bombs in the shape of...fireflies!  Get it?  Get it?

10) You know your movie is sucky when Walter Goggins is killed off as the warden of the high tech penitentiary that houses Cobra Commander and Destro (who is written out in a lame and half-hearted way)...and you kind of wish that he a) survived and b) was the real hero of this film.

There's a reason I didn't mention Bruce Willis in this
review...he doesn't deserve it.

Overall...a prime example of fan service over story, characterization or anything that makes a film a film, this is a sad, sad, sad sequel that manages to be bigger and stupider without being anywhere near as good as the original.  Now if they want to spin off Walter Goggins in his own movie....

I saw this at The Atlas, mainly because my Regal Crown Card coupon for free popcorn was about to expire.  Apparently, as the actual mall is expanding (they’ve finally found an anchor store in Century 21), the theater has cut down on its staff.  This resulted in many of the previews and the first two minutes of the film being out of focus due to a misalignment in the 3D projector.  Among the notable trailers was another, story intensive one for Iron Man 3 (THE FREAKIN’ HULKBUSTER ARMOR!), one for Star Trek: Into Darkness that continues to make me think that the Roddenberry version I learned to respect is gone for good; and a thoroughly confusing one for World War Z that pretty much hides that there are zombies in this film at all.

Ten Statements--No, Wait, ELEVEN!--About....WONDER WOMAN PILOT (2011)

Adrienne Palicki tries to run from David E. Kelley's dialogue.

"I know you want vengeance, but let's leave that to me. I'm kinda good at it."

1) Do you think Cary Elwes looked at what being on The Practice and Boston Legal did for James Spader and said 'I want some of that mojo' when he signed on for this project? Just saying.

Just like I'm saying the obvious plastic surgery makes Elwes look like one of those creepy ventriloquist dummies in bad horror films.

2) I have to be honest here--Adrienne Palecki may not look like Wonder Woman, who should be Greek and all...but she's actually not that bad at all. She's got a definite charm about her, has this megawatt smile and a sense of timing that does work, and I can almost buy her as a super-hero. It's just the David E. Kelley dialogue she's got to spout that prevents me from being all in with her on this project.

3) You know who else is pretty good? Tracie Thoms' Etta Candy, here reworked into one of her right-hand people at Themyscira Industries. There's a definite chemistry between her and Palicki, and you get the impression that, unlike Cary Elwes' Henry Johns--who comes off as the equivalent of Carl Sack, reining in Diana--she's the person who talks sense when our heroine doesn't want sense talked to her. There is certainly a groundwork on which to build a decent series.

4) ...if this wasn't a David E. Kelley production. Make no bones about it, whenever the dialogue creeps into the Kelley-esque, like the whole marketing argument about the size of the breasts on a Wonder Woman action figure (ever want to hear Adrienne Palicki say 'tits' repeatedly? Here's your chance!), the episode loses all the good will it's garnered. There are only a handful of actors--James Spader, Dylan MacDermott, Mark Valley, Candice Bergen, etc.--who can make David E. Kelly's fever dreams sound like they could come from a normal human being's mouth...and no one here is amongst them.

"I'm a bad guy...and I'm fabulous."

5) Well, no one except maybe Elizabeth Hurley, who throws herself into her role as villain Veronica Cale with true bravado. The actress manages to be larger than life without going all the way over the top, and truly seems to be enjoying the Hell out of strutting her stuff.

6) Mr. Kelley...you can either have Adrienne Palicki get all huffy about a doll of her with enormous tits, or you can have her literally wiggling her tits to get a policeman to let her into a suspect's hospital room. You can't have both.

7) Yep...nothing says 'David E. Kelley Production' like a supporting character who's a broadly acted cartoon character...well at least the Senator just has a Foghorn Leghorn 'tude and isn't a cross-dresser or a midget or something else that would entertain Mr. Kelley to the detriment of the story.

8) Is it just me, or are they trying to hint at something of an attraction between Diana and Pedro Pascal's Detective Indelicato? I guess this would make some weird sort of sense given the David E. Kelley playbook, playing Idelicato off Justin Bruening's void of a Steve Trevor if the series had made it past pilot.

9) Ahhhhh, the self-righteous left-wing politcal speech followed by an unusual euphemism for sex...we are definitely in Kelley territory.

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!  It's an evil dummy--no wait, it's Cary Elwes...

10) This is definitely the Greg Rucka Warrior Queen Wonder Woman who thinks nothing of breaking bones and tossing guys around like rag dolls. But jeez...there's no way around how she impales the security guard at the climax (not the main hench guy mind you--a security guard). Having her kill a peon in cold blood destroys all the sympathy we have for her up to that point.

11) I'm going to say something heretical here...Adrienne Palicki actually looks better in that updated pants outfit than she does in the classic tap pants. Quite frankly, she looks uncomfortable and ill at ease in the classic outfit.

Overall...here's something else heretical--this wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been. Sure, it's violently flawed and the David E. Kelley stank is overpowering...but I suspect that with some reworking this could've been something worthwhile.