Tell me a story

The G.I. Joes are in Pakistan. Their mission is to acquire nuclear warheads. After some blams, a few booms, and a smattering of rat-a-tats, it’s mission accomplished. But not so fast. While the Joes are camped out in the desert awaiting their ride home, kaboom! Sneak attack! All but three Joes are killed. Which brings me to a very important lesson I learned from G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a lesson I will now share with you: When trying to avoid detection from your enemies, it is imperative that you find the nearest well. It doesn’t even matter if you’re in the desert. There will always be a well within sprinting distance. And if the bad guys think to look in said well, just submerge yourself, hold your breath and most importantly do not worry. They will never think to drop a grenade in it. On the off chance that they fire a couple of bullets into the well, none of them will hit you. Bullets are afraid of well water. They simply sink gently to the bottom and metamorphosize into goldfish in 24 hours or less. End of lesson.

The surviving Joes are Roadblock (played by Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (played by Adrianne Palicki) and Flint (played by D. J. Cotrona, who isn’t a big enough name to make it onto any of the promotional materials for the film). Shortly after making it back to the U.S. they learn that the hit on them was sanctioned by the president. But wait, something isn’t right about the President. He seems… different. Meanwhile the Cobras are doing the same thing they do every night: trying to take over the world! It’s the G.I. Joes versus Cobra in a battle for the Earth. Bam! Thud! Kapowee!

The bad guys

vs.

The good guys

There’s some charm in Retaliation, some humor as well. Jonathan Pryce sinks his teeth in the scenery as the President of the U.S. Some of the action is a lot of fun, like the ninja fight scene on the mountain—probably the highlight of the film. Sadly the rest of the action in the movie isn’t impressive. There are some fun hand to hand combat scenes with the Rock, but they’re nothing we haven’t seen before. For a movie that’s meant to showcase action, it’s disappointing that its action isn’t very memorable.

I’m currently reading a book called Film Critic: A Decade Behind the Scenes in the Movie Industry written by Laremy Legel. His film critiques have appeared on the radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, podcasts (at RopesofSilicon.com) and online (most at Film.com). His book is a collection of essays, reviews, interviews and other musings. I bring him up to mention his essay entitled “Great Expectations,” which discusses the viewing public’s expectations from movies, namely that we should expect and even demand greatness.

Laremy lists all the people that work on a movie—directors, actors, writers, crew, marketers—and all the hi-tech equipment at their disposal and then wonders why so many movies, particularly blockbusters like G.I. Joe and Transformers, lack coherent stories, good acting and innovation. He grows furious when the people behind the movies then say to the audience, “What do you expect? It’s based on a cartoon/toy/comic book!” Of the first G.I. Joe movie, The Rise of Cobra, he has this to say:

For those two hours and 10 bucks we have placed our sacred trust in the people involved. For those same people to turn around and say, “What did you expect?” is pure hatred. It’s abuse. And you shouldn’t stand for it. Because you’re smarter and stronger than that. You’re owed more from your entertainment, whether you use it for escape or engagement. (Read the full essay here.)

Expecting more from Hollywood is an interesting thought, though not one I completely agree with. In general I move through life expecting very little from most people. I hope instead. If I do expect anything from those in the movie business it is for them to focus more on the business than the movies. What I hope, and often find, is that the road to profits is littered with delectable works of art. I’ve already seen two deliciously satisfying movies since G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and that’s enough to rid my mouth of the sour taste Joe left behind. The two movies are Upstream Color and The Place Beyond the Pines. Both tell interesting stories with compelling characters and intriguing narrative structures. You’ll actually want to discuss them after you leave the theater, which is more than I can say for Joe.

Now would I like movie studios to make higher caliber movies in greater frequency? Without a doubt yes, but I don’t see a huge demand for it in the marketplace. Laremy demands it, sure, but when we see that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra made $300 million worldwide plus an additional $40 million in DVD sales despite a 34% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s clear that movies like G.I. Joe are actually satisfying the market demands. The Rise of Cobra only has a 62% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which in any school would be an F, but $340 million doesn’t seem like a failure to me. With numbers like that can we blame Hollywood for producing more of the same? Check out  the numbers for the Transformers movies. They all performed on par with G.I. Joe.

Rotten Tomatoes – Transformers

Box Office Mojo – Transformers

Laremy’s essay doesn’t go so far as to blame the viewing public for the quality of movie we receive, but he implores the audience to empower themselves by deriding lazy art and praising good art. His request aligns with my own view that we should only pay to see the movies we want to see more of. I paid $16.50 of my money and an hour and forty minutes of my time to see G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and while I won’t say it was a waste of either (because experiencing art is never a waste), I think it would have been better to support a more worthy film, especially since I strongly suspected what I was in for when I was buying the ticket: a lot of action, great visual effects, a trite storyline, poorly developed characters, and a guaranteed happy ending. I left my G.I. Joe toys behind when I started junior high school, and I think it’s time to maybe leave these movies behind now too. At least until the people who make these films make the Joes matter to me again.

My Rating of G.I. Joe: Retaliation

G.I. Joe Retaliation
Director: John M. Chu (Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never)
Writer: Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Both: Zombieland, The Joe Schmo Show [TV])