G.I. Joe: Retaliation Directed by: Jon M. Chu Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum Rating: Not Yet Rated Release Date: March 29, 2013
Trailer Score: 6/10
Thoughts by TSR: This thing was supposed to come out seven months ago. We'd most likely have long since forgotten about it, other than perhaps occasionally thinking about the spectacular cliffside ninja battle. Instead we have another trailer to look at with two months to go before its release. The first two trailers actually had me pretty pumped for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but at this point I just want it to come out already.
It isn't even a case of the footage in this IMAX trailer being markedly worse than what was featured in the earlier ones. It's that it's giving us mostly the same stuff for the third time. The best moments in this trailer – the aforementioned cliffside fight scene, the Cobra flags hanging from the White House, and Bruce Willis firing a machine gun from the back of an El Camino – were all the best moments in the first trailer from over a year ago. It'll be a shame if that's basically all the film has to offer. I will say that the effects work for the massive destruction of London is pretty impressive. And after mentioning how I could do without the cheesy one-liners in the second trailer, it is nice to see Dwayne Johnson calling out Channing Tatum for his groan-worthy "Drive it like you stole it" catchphrase. There was a time when I was surprised to be excited about G.I. Joe: Retaliation. That excitement has been replaced with something much closer to the indifference that a sequel to the mediocre G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra deserves.