The G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence.
The Joes re-team to prevent Cobra from achieving total world domination in this sequel that picks up shortly after the events of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The Nanomite threat has been neutralized, and the U.S. government has imprisoned Cobra Commander and Destro in an inescapable subterranean prison. When the leader of Pakistan is assassinated, the U.S. president (Jonathan Pryce) calls on the Joes to secure Pakistan's nuclear warheads before they fall into enemy hands. In the wake of successfully completing their mission, however, the Joes are decimated in a devastating surprise attack. When the smoke clears, Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), and Flint (D.J. Cotrona) are the sole survivors. They're convinced that something is amiss in the White House, and as Lady Jaye theorizes that an impostor is pretending to be the commander in chief, bad guys Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-Hun) and Firefly (Ray Stevenson) team up to break Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey) out of ...
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of combat violence and martial arts action throughout, and for brief sensuality and language| See all certifications »
The film is influenced by G.I. Joe: Renegades (2010), where Cobra turns the authorities against the Joes, making the Joes into hunted fugitives. See more »
Goofs
Article One Section Eight of the US Constitution states that only Congress has the ability to declare war. The President can not declare war on his own. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Lady Jaye:
Hustle up guys. You've got to get that defector and get the hell out of there. No delays.
See more »
Crazy Credits
Part of the closing credits are a montage of scenes from the film. See more »
Alternate Versions
The extended cut has the following additional material and changes:
Extended prologue: Mouse and Flint have a contest where whoever can get a hand grenade out from the water barrel with his mouth is the winner. Mouse eventually wins and Flint makes fun of him. Roadblock is annoyed by that and punishes Flint by pushing his head into the barrel again. Duke shows up and makes fun of Roadblock's lecture. While pushing Flint's head again into the barrel, he and Roadblock grin at each other.
The Blind Master / Jinx / Snake Eyes sequence introduced midway in the theatrical version is now moved to the beginning and its introduction is much more slower, clearer minus the narration. As Jinx prepares to fight Snake Eyes, she is told that to prove worthy of joining the Joes, Snake Eyes must not get a single hair of hers. The fight is longer but Snake eventually wins. She leaves frustrated. The Blind Master gives the indestructible sword to him, telling him to stop Cobra.
There are more killings shown by the Joes in the base raid and more explicit.
An additional line by Duke after he lost the shooting contest to Roadblock, looking at his rifle: "Yup, as long as I can bring this."
The president's son ambushes Zartan with a toy gun. He asks Havoc if he wasn't supposed to protect his father but Zartan instead tells him to clean the chocolate stash in his mother's bedroom. Zartan tells Havoc to "take out his fat ass next time". This scene is also a cross-promotion for Nerf, as the president's son is wielding a Nerf N-Strike Elite Retaliator.
Extra line by Zartan telling the real president that he's brought back some interns.
The night helicopter attack is slightly longer.
The assault on the underground prison by Storm Shadow and Firefly is slightly more graphic. Instead of the original cut, Snake Eyes is surprised by Jinx's appearance who wants to help him, saying she knows where Storm Shadow is likely to go to heal his wounds. He hands her the fighting sticks.
There's a longer joke of Roadblock and his street friend on his pants.
Storm Shadow's healing is now shown as one whole sequence.
Instead of agreeing in the original version, Jaye and Flint are against Roadblock's idea of waiting and killing Zartan in the alley. They want him alive to be brought to Colton.
Additional graphic shots of Roadblock and Firefly's alley fight.
As Jaye stitches Roadblock's shoulder, Flint, frustrated comes in and blames Roadblock for not following his own lectures. Frustrated, Roadblock leaves the room to clean the weapons while he sits down. Jaye asks Flint to help her with the dress. There's also a longer reflection of Jaye on the TV screen. Roadblock then comes in again and tells them to help clean the weapons.
During the collage of the freedom summit, Cobra and his crew leave the boat to meet a small army while Zartan holds his speech.
In the catacomb assault, Zartan now grabs the case instead of Firefly, thus the order from Cobra has changed with a shot of Firefly with the case removed. Later when he gets the case back, Cobra asks him of the status of the satellites.
Jinx leads the other presidents through the catacombs while killing a few more Cobra soldiers. She gets pressured into a corner before Snake Eyes comes in for the assist. Meanwhile, Storm Shadow follows Zartan who hides with a soldier. As he enters the room, he hears Zartan's voice saying he never expected him to become a G.I Joe.
Storm Shadow's fight with the red ninja is longer. Zartan tries to shoot him a few times but misses. Noticing that both fighters buried under the boxes, Zartan tries to shoot him at gunpoint, but instead gets himself at the Shadow's sword point. Then, an explosive firefly lands on the blade and explodes, before Firefly enters the room and retrieves the case.
More killing of Zartan's guards while rescuing the real President by Colton and Jaye.
There are extra shots of Roadblock's wielding of the assault gun and the final fight with Firefly.
Lastly, Jinx wants to return the sword to Snake Eyes but is signaled to keep it, having proving her worth.
G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra feels like it belongs to a different age of blockbusters. It had a hard time fitting in to the modern generation thus most moviegoers never find it as appealing as the other films that was released on that year. Those rants can be true only in some reasons. The film is undeniably silly and dumb but it was never boring and has its own quality. Since people are now asking for darker and much serious blockbusters, this sequel reduces all the silliness that was displayed on the original. G.I. Joe: Retaliation is cooler and less cartoony. Unfortunately, it is also less exciting and terribly uninspired. The action may be better looking but the lack of fortitude and creativity made it fall short into another visual showcase stress.
"Awesome" is the main goal of this sequel. While the original was too corny to impress, this film darkens the tone and made it a bit down to earth. It abandons the silly gadgets and the ridiculous laws of physics that was shown in the original. But the film fails to be both dark and realistic. Not only because of those robotic fireflies and the mass annihilating missiles but the secret prisons and the government are unbelievably dumb to manage their job. Well, it's a blockbuster based on toys so it will never be too realistic. Deal with it while we are here for the fun. The dark aspects aren't dark at all. What they only do is to be serious. This seriousness blocks the potential joy and turns it into standard blockbuster bland.
The storytelling is quite messy. It's like an uninteresting version of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol with uninteresting characters. The storytelling from the first movie wasn't great either since it is cluttered with cheesy flashbacks. But it's worse here because it takes some twists that are absurdly incoherent. And so, it's all pretentious. The characters are boring and even the performances can't bring them to life. Dwayne Johnson is the only good thing among them though, Bruce Willis is trying to make fun of himself again as a crazy grandaddy, and the villains ham it up which isn't suppose to be a bad thing but they can't give enough personality to them.
The action scenes are acceptable enough to call awesome at least. With all the explosions and the none CGI-ed machines, it seems to be really exciting, but it's not. It does a fine job to be pretty but there's a difference between good looking and exciting. There's only a little suspense. If there is actually suspense and joy then it would be found at the mountain ninja fight but it's just mild and still glosses some slow motions in it. For the rest of the action, the heroes are always superior. Plus more explosions and slow-mos. The action is stylishly directed anyway. The fight between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow remains to be the only action that excites and one part of the climax has a nutty scene with The Rock riding huge vehicles and shooting like a badass. The production designs, special effects, and costumes gets better. What else to talk about it?
The absence of the Joes' ridiculous transportation and weapons, holograms, and other snazzy gadgets may please our modern viewers but it also forgets why this material is interesting anyway. Now we only get typical military stuff. It still has some crazy devices but it's limited compare to the first film. Rise of Cobra wasn't a classic. It's nothing more than a simple guilty pleasure. Same with Retaliation except this one can't even be completely pleasurable unless you want some endless visual coolness. Cool is not a bad thing but it could have been creative and much more exciting instead of showing off slow-mos on screen. To be fair, it's mildly entertaining and good to look at. If the film wasn't this visually awesome, it would have been an empty cinema. The series still fails to justify its source material.
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G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra feels like it belongs to a different age of blockbusters. It had a hard time fitting in to the modern generation thus most moviegoers never find it as appealing as the other films that was released on that year. Those rants can be true only in some reasons. The film is undeniably silly and dumb but it was never boring and has its own quality. Since people are now asking for darker and much serious blockbusters, this sequel reduces all the silliness that was displayed on the original. G.I. Joe: Retaliation is cooler and less cartoony. Unfortunately, it is also less exciting and terribly uninspired. The action may be better looking but the lack of fortitude and creativity made it fall short into another visual showcase stress.
"Awesome" is the main goal of this sequel. While the original was too corny to impress, this film darkens the tone and made it a bit down to earth. It abandons the silly gadgets and the ridiculous laws of physics that was shown in the original. But the film fails to be both dark and realistic. Not only because of those robotic fireflies and the mass annihilating missiles but the secret prisons and the government are unbelievably dumb to manage their job. Well, it's a blockbuster based on toys so it will never be too realistic. Deal with it while we are here for the fun. The dark aspects aren't dark at all. What they only do is to be serious. This seriousness blocks the potential joy and turns it into standard blockbuster bland.
The storytelling is quite messy. It's like an uninteresting version of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol with uninteresting characters. The storytelling from the first movie wasn't great either since it is cluttered with cheesy flashbacks. But it's worse here because it takes some twists that are absurdly incoherent. And so, it's all pretentious. The characters are boring and even the performances can't bring them to life. Dwayne Johnson is the only good thing among them though, Bruce Willis is trying to make fun of himself again as a crazy grandaddy, and the villains ham it up which isn't suppose to be a bad thing but they can't give enough personality to them.
The action scenes are acceptable enough to call awesome at least. With all the explosions and the none CGI-ed machines, it seems to be really exciting, but it's not. It does a fine job to be pretty but there's a difference between good looking and exciting. There's only a little suspense. If there is actually suspense and joy then it would be found at the mountain ninja fight but it's just mild and still glosses some slow motions in it. For the rest of the action, the heroes are always superior. Plus more explosions and slow-mos. The action is stylishly directed anyway. The fight between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow remains to be the only action that excites and one part of the climax has a nutty scene with The Rock riding huge vehicles and shooting like a badass. The production designs, special effects, and costumes gets better. What else to talk about it?
The absence of the Joes' ridiculous transportation and weapons, holograms, and other snazzy gadgets may please our modern viewers but it also forgets why this material is interesting anyway. Now we only get typical military stuff. It still has some crazy devices but it's limited compare to the first film. Rise of Cobra wasn't a classic. It's nothing more than a simple guilty pleasure. Same with Retaliation except this one can't even be completely pleasurable unless you want some endless visual coolness. Cool is not a bad thing but it could have been creative and much more exciting instead of showing off slow-mos on screen. To be fair, it's mildly entertaining and good to look at. If the film wasn't this visually awesome, it would have been an empty cinema. The series still fails to justify its source material.