First things first. The worst news. North Korea has declared war on South Korea, and has revealed plans to strike the U.S. on its very own soil, apparently as far as Austin, Texas. For some odd reason this isn't causing as large of a splash as it should, considering the North Koreans have one of the largest standing armies in the world and a nuclear arsenal as well. Not helping matters is that their leader is out to prove himself, and their military is brash and stupid, but intelligent enough to create a highly explosively, and dangerous combination. Hopefully, North Korea doesn't go for the Hitler strategy of threats and appeasement, otherwise we could be in for a very dark future. So, let's keep all of the South Koreans in mind, along with the Japanese, Chinese and everyone else who is stuck next to North Korea. But we should also keep in mind the harshly oppressed civilian population of that country; those people suffer and most don't have a single clue as to what is beyond the barbed wired fences of their lives. Alright, now for not as bad, bad news. I saw G.I. JOE: Retaliation today in IMAX 3-D, which I have to admit is some of the finest 3-D on a film I have seen almost yet. It was very immersive, and I actually felt and did dodge stuff that was coming at me; that is what 3-D is supposed to be about, not just scene depth. Honestly though, I much preferred the first film to this one for a number of reasons: the first film had much more dynamic action sequences, it was filmed with much more dynamic and interesting taste, I liked the characters more (of which there were far better ones, and more interesting stories), I preferred the villains more, the story and plot line, it was longer, and it was technologically more interesting with far more interesting weapons, instead of just plain guns and plain shooting action, that wasn't that dynamic or interesting. There was just a lot of carnage. Ray Stevenson as Firefly was so awesome and cool, and the best villain, even though Cobra Commander was back and looking bad as ever, but he hardly had any screen time unfortunately. Channing Tatum (Duke) had less screen time than I thought he was going to, and came off as annoying most of the time. Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes were....fine, but nothing new, better or necessarily different. Jinx was present, but not done very well whatsoever; no personality, hardly any dialog, and not much of a fighter, or interesting one. Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) was the biggest mistake of this entire film, Bruce Willis (General Colton) was the second. The presence of these two men made the film less of a serial film, and more of a simple action film like Die Hard. Not something that the first film was like, where it was constantly exploring the dynamics and relationships of ALL the major characters involved. Lady Jaye was fine, but was only brought on because she was "hot" not because of anything else, and they utilized that when filming her. Flint had potential, but really came off as annoying on several occasions; neither one of their characters were explored at all hardly. I'm giving it a "Yearning Ability" and if you want to see it fine (try to see it in 3-D to make it worth seeing in the theater), if not then you aren't missing anything. It was entertaining, but I found the first one far more entertaining and interesting than this one. Nothing really set is apart from any other shoot em up action film out there on the market, but G.I. JOE is supposed toe be different, and this film was a let down as I had really high expectations for it, even though "The Rock" was going to be in it. Well I got injured while walking the dog, so I'm going to go nurse my "wounds" and finish putting my laundry away. Such an exciting conclusion to the end of the day right.G.I. JOE: Retaliation Interviews
"Firefly" Profile
"Cobra Commander" Profile
