G.I. Joe: Retaliation Reviews
Common Sense Media
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Spectrum (St. George, Utah)
Dumb, hyperkinetic fun.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
Scene-Stealers.com
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
3AW
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Film Racket
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...
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
Entertainment Spectrum
This film had no use of the 3D.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
SFX Magazine
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Moviedex
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Austin Chronicle
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
jackiekcooper.com
Routine action adventure but that mountainside battle is one for the record books.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/10
Laramie Movie Scope
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: C+
Atlantic City Weekly
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."
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Leonard Maltin's Picks
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.
Tampa Bay Times
This movie never realizes how ridiculous anything it does truly is, right up to the last-second promise of another sequel.
Full Review
| Original Score: D
Observer [UK]
It's like the childhood dream of the president of the National Rifle Association.
Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: D+
MovieCrypt.com
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?
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.0/4.0
Needcoffee.com
If you played with G.I. Joe action figures...any crazy storyline you came up with is probably less silly than this.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
