Jon M. Chu’s action-packed sequel* starring Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis and Channing Tatum follows the elite* soldiers in a worldwide battle against the bad guys.

    After spiriting* a defector* out of North Korea, Duke (Tatum) and Roadblock (Johnson) relax by playing a video game. However, there’s more trouble ahead.

    When last seen, the president of the United States had been displaced by a look-alike imposter* installed by the evil organization Cobra, and now it’s time to cash in on the charade*.

    Sending the G.I. Joes into Pakistan to remove some nukes*, the faux* president then betrays* America’s best fighters by attacking their base, leaving just four survivors: Duke, Roadblock, Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki).

    While the president calls for global disarmament*, more bad guys show up, including Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and the ferocious* Firefly (Ray Stevenson).

    A Japanese subplot involving ninjas* and a strange guru* seems like filler* to allow the Joes time to lick their wounds and figure out how to get to the alleged president.

    But no matter what, director Jon M. Chu never forgets his duty to whip together some action sequence every 10 or 15 minutes and to make sure to provide close-ups and practical demonstrations* of as many fancy* pieces of artillery* as possible.

    The director clearly knows his intended audiences and what they want: a less mechanized, more human-based younger brother to Hasbro’s other cash-cow franchise Transformers.

    The film was held back from its original 2012 release date so it could be converted to* 3D. Perhaps the bean counters* know best as to whether this was worth the effort, but aesthetically* the effect is negligible* and sometimes quite unpleasant, especially when the framing of action is tight. (SD-Agencies)

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