I just watched "Retaliation" immediately after watching "The Rise of Cobra" and it's extremely disappointing. To start with I don't think many understood that the vision of the whole G. I. Joe movie universe was to try and stay as authentic to the original cartoon as possible. The problem is that Hasbro and the creators of these G. I. Joe movies far overestimated just how many loyal fans they really had. The gross revenue generated from the original movie was so bad, but not bad enough to completely cancel this sequel which turned out to be just awful. The way I see it they were committed to the sequel, but only kept 2 things: 1. Zartan has taken the identity of the president and 2. The relationship between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Now if they wanted this to feel like a true sequel I would have focused way more of the movie on Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, but clearly they had this brainless idea that the only way to save the franchise was with star power: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Bruce Willis! Maybe these 2 names sold more tickets, but the scenes they were featured in didn't feel like G. I. Joe at all and created a major identity crisis for the movie. I think they would have been better off just completely starting over from scratch rather than wasting a third of the movie killing off Duke(Channing Tatum) which contributed nothing to the end story of the movie. They cleaned house so badly on the cast of the original movie that calling this a sequel was an insult really. Let's just say I liked the direction and overall vibe of the original far better for staying true to the cartoon.
Review of G.I. Joe: Retaliation
