GI Jooooooooooooe! "GI Joe: Retaliation" continues from whence "GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra" left off — the Joes have defeated Cobra, placed Cobra Commander and his crew in prison and Zartan has impersonated the President of the United States with his nanomites. Using his newfound presidential powers, Zartan deems the Joes traitors to the US and kills most of them. Releasing Cobra Commander from prison, they place the United States under the control of Cobra. Taking control of the US military, Cobra places the world's leaders under under their control through their military might. Introducing The Rock as Roadblock and the return of Channing Tatum as Duke, this movie features one hell of a modified Ducati Monster 796. Quad machine guns on your motorcycle, anyone?
Get Your Popcorn!:
The motorcycle up close at San Diego Comic Con 2012.
The Movie
Taking off right where "GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra" ended, "GI Joe: Retaliation" resumes the epic struggle between Cobras and Joes. With Zartan having assumed the identify of the President of the United States, the tides now roll in the Cobras' favor. Destroying the Joes and branding them traitors, only a small group of Joes remain. Cobra has taken over the world using the United States' military. In last ditch attempt to restore order, the remaining Joes band together swearing to defeat Cobra once and for all — with one badass motorcycle.
Firefly's motorcycle.
The Bike
Virtually unrecognizable, the motorcycle from "GI Joe: Retaliation" is a heavily modified Ducati Monster 796. Reconstructed to resemble a badass special forces vehicle, its equipped with four Heckler and Koch MP7 sub machine guns that fire HK's 4.6 x 30 mm (think a small round like a .22 caliber) at 950 rounds per minute at 2,411 feet per second. That will definitely cause some mass destruction. The fairing has been drastically changed as we can see from the photos. As we've seen in the trailer, the motorcycle splits up into six (one of the engine, tank, front wheel, rear wheel, and one for each side panel) rocket propelled missiles.
The Rider
In "GI Joe: Retaliation", the person who rides the motorcycle is Firely, portrayed by Ray Stevenson. Firefly is a mercenary and works for the Cobra as a saboteur. Not only is Firefly a ninja, he is an expert in all manners of explosive devices.
Firefly on his motorcycle.
The Action
From the trailer, we can see that the "GI Joe: Retaliation" motorcycle is used in a combat situation on a Cobra compound/building. We can see the rider parachuting off the motorcycle as the motorcycle splits into six rockets headed start for a building and the scene changes. That's as much as we know, for now.
The Reality
While a heavily modified sport bike looks the coolest for a mercenary's motorcycle, it isn't the most ideal due to the fact its built for speed and handling and not the rugged necessiteis of combat. An high end adventure bike would be much better suited for any combat situation due to its large load capacity and ability to travel over multiple surfaces. A bike like a Ural sidecar , BMW R1200GS or KTM 990 ADV would be much better suited for an attack motorcycle. A military spec version (re-enforced to meet military standards) of any of those bikes would be much more practical. Our own military uses KLR650s converted to run on Diesel. They can take what they dish out and you could mount all sorts of nifty mercenary necessary toys to it. As for the motorcycling splitting up into what appears to be six rockets, that's a cool special effect for a movie, but not doable in reality.
Also, why does a bike with an air-cooled twin sound like a high-revving inline-four?
Believability: 3/10
GI Joe Retaliation will be appearing in theaters on March 29, 2013.