No matter the glitz and chaos, or the state-of-the-art special effects that dominate the screen, sometimes an action figure just doesn't make much of a movie. Though a moderate improvement on the dreadful "Rise of Cobra," "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" is a movie with nowhere to go, an action exercise made with Michael Bay's enthusiasm for explosions but not many signs of intelligence to bring the story together.
In between gadgets and tough guys standing there looking tough, we're left with shards of a plot that no one could believe and not enough imagination to get lost in the absurdity. We may want to like Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum or Bruce Willis in the material, but their action presence is completely wasted by a movie experience that plays like an extended trailer on repeat.
Following the setup of "Rise of Cobra," we know that the President of the United States is being impersonated by a bad guy, which leads us to believe that some horrible things are on the horizon. Sure enough, after the G.I. Joes are framed for swiping nuclear weaponry from Pakistan, many of them are wiped out in a brutal military strike, leaving the few remaining survivors angry and motivated for revenge.
In the tradition of the countless movies about the gang getting together for a sacred mission, we quickly move to the surviving Joes as they try to get a grasp on why they're under attack. Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (D.J. Corona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) are definitely motivated for - you guess it - retaliation, though they could use some veteran leadership to get them over the hump.
Naturally, they turn to Bruce Willis. After making the rounds in all kinds of action movies recently, Willis here plays a guy he can sink into on autopilot: a crusty U.S. general named Joseph Colton who is ready to uproot the corrupt establishment at the blink of an eye. After helping the new team sneak into the White House to obtain a blood sample from the President, thus proving that he's actually their sworn enemy Zartan, our Joes still don't seem to be in much of a position to extract their revenge.
Meanwhile, other plots push forward. In an attempt to capture Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee), the Blind Master (RZA) sends a small team to the Himalayas. Though this feels like mostly an aside to the main plot, it provides opportunities for some impossible sword fights and panning of the beautifully exotic landscape, which ends up being one of the highlights of the film.
Back on the main story, Zartan uses his influence as the President of the U.S. to smoothly intimidate every other nation worth intimidating. At a summit of all the top leaders, Zartan explains that he can destroy their countries several times over, leading to angst and even a cheap shot at the size of North Korea.
Leaders that have heard of the Cold War and the stockpiling of hydrogen bombs probably wouldn't find this to be all that surprising, but Zartan drives the point home by destroying London in a stunning feat of cruelty and fairly well-done special effects. With the world in the grip of a madman, the Joes are, once again, the only entity that can bring about justice and peace.
But even with an utterly ridiculous plot blended together from James Bond and "Transformers" movies, "Retaliation" still has some hope that it will find some fun in its A-list cast of action stars - a hope that never comes to fruition.
As he proved again recently in "Snitch," Johnson is a capable actor who can provide some surprising nuance, but here he's pretty much back in monotone tough guy mode. Though some of the early sequences between Tatum and Johnson at least provided a bit of promise, "Retaliation" quickly denigrates into an action movie in which the only goal, it seems, is to badger the audience with loud noises and chaos.
Once we get the big "twist" out of the way early on, we're also left without even a shred of suspense, as the characters dance from one absurd situation to the next without much actual chance they'll meet their demise.
Given Hollywood's love of built-in audiences, it was inevitable that we'd see a "G.I. Joe" franchise. The production values look fine, the cast is more than capable, director Jon M. Chu has a good feel for action sequences, and yet "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" plays like an uninspired video game that lacks the possibility that you could actually lose.
After two feeble attempts at turning "G.I. Joe" into a movie worth watching, perhaps our heroes are better left up to the imagination of eight-year-olds during playtime.
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June 05, 2026 16:18 ET A busy week for economic news flow saw a slew of reports being released that reflected the trends in the U.S. labor market. In Europe, economic growth and inflation data gained attention as the European Central Bank and Bank of England head for policy session later in the month. In Asia, the monetary policy session of the Indian central bank was in focus as the country, a major oil importer, reels under the pressures of a weaker rupee and rising inflation.