Don't expect your friends and family to like this movie. It's not a good movie, of course. Huge plot holes, ridiculous villain plans, hilarious science fails, a truckload of story telling cliches, fake ninja fight scenes with impossible moves, and a total lack of suspense... It's your typical Hollywood action film, not a piece of art.

But, even if it's not a good movie per se, is it perhaps a good GIJoe movie ?

Well, at the very least, it's infinitely better than Rise of Cobra (admittedly, that was not much of a challenge), for the simple reason that the makers of Retaliation seem to have paid attention to "vintage" incarnations of the franchise.

Unlike in Rise of Cobra, many characters are now instantly recognizable: Cobra Commander, Firefly, Jinx... all evoke their older cartoon and toy counterparts. (Though I don't remember seeing Flint wearing a black beret and gloves. Anyone ?) Some vehicles too are obvious throwbacks to earlier designs; the HISS tank, the boats, the buggy that screamed AWE Striker to me...

There's Red Ninjas, there's Jinx in Helix outfit, there's Joe Colton, Zandar... And people and equipment actually carry the classic Cobra logo ! The Marvel comics also provided some obvious inspiration for the character background of our ninjas, of Zartan...

The futuristic technology used by Joes and Cobras is not less unrealistic than that of the previous movie, but somehow the total lack of ray guns brings it all well within the boundaries of suspension of disbelief. Oh, and the conversion to 3D was indeed done pretty well.

All in all, it's not as faithful an adaptation as Dredd was, which really was a Judge Dredd comic brought to the big screen. But yes, I think a GIJoe fan can find a lot of things to like in this film.