G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

All Critics (153) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (43) | Rotten (110)

The filmmakers appear to have handed a dozen or so G.I. Joe dolls to a 9-year-old, watched him play for 110 minutes, and then shot a scene-for-scene remake.

March 29, 2013 Full Review

Peter Hartlaub

San Francisco Chronicle

Top Critic

What a blast G.I. Joe: Retaliation is! And then another blast, and another, in a series of concussive jolts that shred any conventional sense of story as thoroughly as anything since the last Michael Bay film.

March 29, 2013 Full Review

Liam Lacey

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

When it comes to big and loud, this is the movie to beat for at least this week; what makes it entertaining is its unabashed wallow in these qualities ...

March 29, 2013 Full Review

Glenn Kenny

MSN Movies

Top Critic

Plays like a tiresomely extended evening of channel surfing.

March 29, 2013 Full Review

Keith Uhlich

Time Out New York

Top Critic

No go, "Joe."

March 29, 2013 Full Review

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

Retaliation is less a sequel than an antidote to the calcified mound of crap that ostensibly inspired it.

March 29, 2013 Full Review

Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

Has a great deal more grace and goodwill than its predecessor. It moves well, offers up the occasional surprise, and never takes itself too seriously.

May 3, 2013 Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Common Sense Media

Dumb, hyperkinetic fun.

April 25, 2013 Full Review

Bruce Bennett

Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

I was prepared for the expected amount of flag-waving nonsense in this film, but one sequence with a Cobra member posing as the President of the United States is so offensive, it seems like it was an outtake from Team America: World Police.

April 15, 2013 Full Review

Eric Melin

Scene-Stealers.com

Dizzyingly entertaining celebration of fireballs, wire-assisted martial arts and high-calibre firepower has more grace and poise than Die Hard 5...will surely make up for those disappointed with the so-so 2009 film.

April 12, 2013 Full Review

Jim Schembri

3AW

While it might be the height of critical cliché (and analytically wrong) to call G.I. Joe: Retaliation "a real American Zero," if the combat boot fits...

April 12, 2013 Full Review

Bill Gibron

Film Racket

Explosions and action figures.

April 11, 2013 Full Review

Cynthia Fuchs

PopMatters

This film had no use of the 3D.

April 10, 2013 Full Review

Jolene Mendez

Entertainment Spectrum

Retaliation isn't hatefully dumb - it's entertainingly dumb. But even after the umpteen millions it cost to make, it never comes close to capturing the imagination like three 3/4" action figures can.

April 10, 2013 Full Review

Jordan Farley

SFX Magazine

Marries the steroidal firepower of the US armed forces with the narrative sense and technical elegance of a twelve year old playing with his action figures.

April 6, 2013 Full Review

Tom Clift

Moviedex

Tea Party paranoia about Obama's alien identity and fascist agenda apparently motivated this disappointing sequel, which pits the Joes against an impostor U.S. president (Jonathan Pryce) working for the evil forces of Cobra.

April 5, 2013 Full Review

John Beifuss

Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

As to be expected, Johnson actually imbues his character with some humanity, but in the cacophony that is this movie, this doesn't really amount to much.

April 5, 2013 Full Review

Louis Black

Austin Chronicle

Routine action adventure but that mountainside battle is one for the record books.

April 4, 2013 Full Review

Jackie K. Cooper

jackiekcooper.com

The plot is just a thin outline providing opportunities for lots of shootouts, explosions, chases, kung-fu fighting and massive destruction (including the destruction of a major world city). But that is what you buy your ticket to see, after all.

April 4, 2013 Full Review

Robert Roten

Laramie Movie Scope

Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis provide performances that should be in the hall of shame under the category "Best example of going through the motions for a paycheck."


April 4, 2013 Full Review

Lori Hoffman

Atlantic City Weekly

There's a decent attempt to humanize the characters and make them more than mere fighting machines...but there are also potholes in the logic of the screenplay, by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

April 2, 2013 Full Review

Leonard Maltin

Leonard Maltin's Picks

This movie never realizes how ridiculous anything it does truly is, right up to the last-second promise of another sequel.

April 2, 2013 Full Review

Steve Persall

Tampa Bay Times

It's like the childhood dream of the president of the National Rifle Association.

April 1, 2013 Full Review

Philip French

Observer [UK]

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is such a craven and relentless onslaught of obsessive gun fetishization that you half expect to see the NRA's logo appear alongside Paramount and Hasbro.

March 31, 2013 Full Review

Jeff Meyers

Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

Folks, we'd all love to see a hard-line G.I. Joe film where everything is realistic, but when was the show ever realistic?

March 31, 2013 Full Review

Kevin A. Ranson

MovieCrypt.com

If you played with G.I. Joe action figures...any crazy storyline you came up with is probably less silly than this.

March 30, 2013 Full Review

Widgett Walls

Needcoffee.com

• 1. Cobra Commander: The Cobra Revolution has begun.
  – Submitted by Typhon Q (18 days ago)
• 1. Cobra Commander: I want it all!
  – Submitted by Frederick L (38 days ago)
• 1. Cobra Commander: Destro, you're out of the band!
  – Submitted by Scott W (40 days ago)
• 1. Firefly: Let me see that face!
  – Submitted by Aaron S (40 days ago)
• 1. Duke: Hell yeah!
  – Submitted by sam v (41 days ago)
• 1. Firefly: Boom!
  – Submitted by sam v (42 days ago)