The teaser for G.I. Joe: Retaliation just debuted online, and it may not be quite what you were expecting. There’s action galore, but it’s grittier and more realistic than it was in its predecessor (at least, as realistic as a movie can be when it still has ninjas who look like fencing champions). It’s also directed by Jon Chu, of Step Up 3-D and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never fame, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any water-dancing or hairdo-shaking. Perhaps most important, remember when we wondered how Paramount would market the G.I. Joe sequel since its star, Channing Tatum, is also toplining the male-stripper epic Magic Mike, opening the exact same day? The answer is: They basically get rid of him! In fact, there’s so little Tatum in this trailer that we wonder if he gets, well, Gwyneth-in-Contagioned (yes, that is a verb). Luckily, the Joes have Dwayne Johnson, Adrianne Palicki, and D.J. Cotrona there to pick up the slack, as well as a late-trailer cameo from … you know, we won’t spoil it, except to say that when this star first appeared, we thought it was the de-aged Jessica Lange from all those CG-aided flashbacks in American Horror Story. Turns out, it isn’t!
