G.I. Joe: Retaliation is too good of a movie.

I felt like watching The Empire Strikes Back the other night. And since I refuse to own any of the special editions, including the one with the theatrical cut as a bonus feature, I decided to opt for my second choice of the evening: G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Now let me start off by saying I loved the first movie, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Its absolute ridiculousness and over the top shenanigans made it a fun bad movie for me. I didn’t care for the lack of a Cobra Commander costume or Snake Eyes’ face mask with the lips, but overall I was pleased with it. It’s a bad movie with plenty to enjoy.

My opinion was not shared by most of the world, and so they tried again with GI Joe: Retaliation. For all intents and purposes this is a better movie. The cast is stronger, Cobra Commander and Snake Eyes’ costumes are cartoon accurate, and the story is somewhat more plausible (although still over the top in that cartoon sense). But despite all that I still liked the first movie better.

Retaliation tried hard to be a good movie, and for what it is I suppose it’s okay. But the fact that they tried to make a better movie made its flaws more apparent. The idea of a man in a Cobra Commander outfit was cool at first but seemed to get sillier as the movie went one.

I guess I expected Retaliation to take itself just a little less seriously and go the route they did with Rise of Cobra. But I’m the minority on that one.