A blast for action figure fans

Film Review: GI Joe: Retaliation (12a)
Running time 110 minutes
Rating:**
Few films arrive at the cinema screen without having had some kind of previous incarnation.
Most of them come from books or plays, some originate from newspaper stories, while others are adapted from other media formats – such as the current craze for making films based on Marvel comics.
There are exceptions however. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was developed from the theme park adventure at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, while the GI Joe films came from the toymaker Hasbro.
There have been two GI Joe films so far, the latest being GI Joe: Retaliation, starring Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis and Jonathan Pryce.
The Joes – as everyone under the age of 12 knows – are an elite force who defeat evil, mainly in the form of a nasty organisation called Cobra (why do nasty organisations always have silly names, ie Smersh, Thrush, Spectre?)
After defeating Cobra in the previous film and imprisoning its leaders, the Joes are asked to retrieve nuclear weapons left hanging around in Pakistan where terrorists could pick them up for a song.
But it’s a set-up, and the force is wiped out by Cobra soldiers, apart from Roadblock (Johnson) and a couple of others. The strike was ordered by the President (Pryce) who, it is quickly noticed by the remaining Joes, is not quite the man he was.
In fact he is a double who reveals he is working for Cobra, whose leaders have now escaped from prison and are back on track for world domination.
There is much fighting – in factories, on the tops of mountains or in prisons.
Many people are killed by various painful means, but as this is a 12A certificate, no recognisably real humans were hurt in the making of the film.
If you like playing with toys, such as blowing things up, and also like seeing people wear silly costumes and say equally silly dialogue, then this is just the film for you.
On the plus side, the special effects in the film are rather good, especially a spectacular scene where London is blown up by a new kind of secret weapon.
Bruce Willis, obviously taking a day off from his Die Hard work, makes a guest appearance as a grumpy but honest general and manages to look the best actor on the studio lot by keeping quiet.
Apart from taking your pre-teen boys to see it – or girls if they like blowing things up – this has limited appeal to a mass audience.