Despite being one of the more nothing movies we’ve ever watched, we somehow crap out what we believe to be our longest episode with G.I. Joe: Retaliation. It’s a living. Meanwhile, Dan and Elliott explain what “G.I. Joe” means, and develop President Ziggy, and Stuart reveals he’s an evil land developer.
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Wikipedia synopsis for G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Movies recommended in this episode:
Raising Cain
Videodrome
Death Rides a Horse
It’s not just that they were happy to punish Stormshadow instead of Snakeeyes, but they’ve just exposed that the flimsy pretext for declaring the Joes as traitors (Hey, look, that unidentifiable guy in a mask did it — Let’s declare the guy we think he might be, and all his friends, traitors) is an utter sham. Does he do anything to try to alert the world at large of this fact? Nope. Oh, well, not his job, I suppose.
You say the Clone Troopers were all cloned from that one guy who works for a known Sith Lord? Why is that important information? I don’t understand. Oh, no, wait — That’s from a different set of stupid movies.
despite all of the film stupidity… i liked it. its cheesy stupid fun for me plus The Rock
Yeah, it took me forever to find “The Fantastic Adventures of Unico” after I saw it when I was a kid. When the internet was available, I found it. It felt like I was a able to curate my young life.
It’s unfortunate the 80’s animated series is the main reference point people refer to when they think of GI Joe. In a way, it’s similar to Adam West’s Batman being the general public’s idea of the character prior to 1989. The GI Joe Marvel Comics run was pretty decent in adding depth and putting the characters in a real world setting. A few years back, Adult Swim aired the limited animated series GI Joe:Resolute written by Warren Ellis which was much better than the 80’s series and both recent awful movies. Community’s GI Joe animated episode managed to skewer the series and celebrate why so many kids in the 80s loved the property. I’d recommend it for everyone.
I like the GI Joe movies. The first one was better, probably because The Mummy director knows how to do action, but I didn’t mind the second. The people in charge sorta knows it’s super cheesy and play it appropriately.
This is, incidentally, why I can’t get into more serious fare like the aforementioned GI Joe: Resolute series or the recent IDW comics. Half the fun of the show whas that it was ridiculous. Cobra Commander was incompetent, the Dreadnaughts were ridiculous, and Dr. Mindbender was walking around without a shirt. To try to make it serious kills a lot of the charm. It is something Elliot pointed out, but I don’t agree with him that the movies went the serious route. I mean … nanomites eat the Eiffel Tower and London is destroyed by a big cylinder shot from space. Those are seriously cartoon-worthy Cobra plots.
The best thing about Goggins’ amazing performance is how completely unrestrained it is – it’s like the actor decided to pretend that ‘Walton Goggins’ is a famous international celebrity who’s been hired for this movie solely to bring his celebrated persona to the screen, secure that audiences will be delighted just to see him.
Rise of the Cobra as a story was a structural mess ping ponging between goofy comic hijinks from Marlon Wayans and dull action. Retaliation was Dwayne Johnson Invites Himself to Another Franchise Part 3 featuring Bruno “Paycheck Please” Willis. I might give the edge to Rise of the Cobra since that had a bigger scope, but that’s not saying a lot. I was very bored with Retaliation.
I grew up on the 80s animated series, but I don’t have fond memories of it. I get more out of the Community episode and those PSA parodies. Even when I was seven, I questioned the idea of these huge battles ending with no one wounded and was offended the missing link to create the greatest military mind was a B-level overweight professional wrestler lending his name to the show.
To me, the best GI Joe movie was Broken Arrow. It’s not the greatest movie out there, but it managed to balance the humor and action more effectively than Rise of Cobra and Retaliation. Samantha Mathis dressed up as Cover Girl also helped.
It’d be pretty cool if Elliot stopped interrupting Dan all the time and being sort of a dick.
So, when Dan is referred to as the “Cyclops” of the group, we’re all spelling it “Sighclops”, right? Just checking.