There are two fundamental problems with the action "comedy" Pain and Gain: First, Michael Bay is the wrong director for this sort of material, and second, whoever cast the likable Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson in the film made a terrible mistake. I like Wahlberg and Johnson, and that's the problem: In the film the criminal masterminds they portray are such losers that it's just wrong to have these two popular actors in these roles.

Pain and Gain is based on real life events: Sun Gym was a cut-rate bodybuilder's gym just north of Miami, marketed and mostly run by a self-aggrandizing personal trainer with a shady past. Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) trains all the rich and beautiful Miami denizens and has a buddy Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) who shares Lugo's dissatisfaction with the crummy deal they've got. "You ain't gunna be rich being a personal trainer" they repeat like a mantra.

Enter rich Jewish entrepreneur Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) who taunts Lugo about his wealth, his cars, his houses and his women. Being poor is a state of mind, Kershaw keeps telling Lugo. When Lugo goes to a motivational seminar run by Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong) and affirms in front of a crowd that he's a DOER not a DON'T'ER, he hatches a scheme to kidnap Kershaw and force him to sign over money and property.

Add fresh-out-of-prison Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) as the new muscle-bound trainer at the gym and we have our three stooges. When Doyle, Lugo and Doorbal kidnap Kershaw, they figure it'll be a breeze, maybe a day or two tops before Kershaw buckles and gives them everything they want. Except he doesn't and the kidnapping drags out for weeks. There's more to their criminal hijinks, and after Kershaw gets free and tells all to the cops, just to find they don't believe him, the forces of justice end up personified as semi-retired private investigator Ed DuBois (Ed Harris).

Some films require a specific demographic for full enjoyment, and in the action genre, it seems there are a lot aimed at teen boys. A prime example: Gone in Sixty Seconds. It's not that it's a horrible movie, it's just that the storyline is incoherent, the characters are all one-dimensional, the ending is obvious from sixty seconds past the opening titles and the performances are all uninteresting. And the male/female relationships? It couldn't be more cliche.

And yet, there's a certain sophomoric fascination in a film about cool guys stealing gorgeous cars and trying to score with the sexy gals. Really, it's a perfect film for a teen boy, even if his date's going to be distracted, wondering whether this means she can now convince him to see the latest Rom-Com with her next weekend.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is in the same category, and if I could just shut down the mature, adult part of my brain, the boy inside would totally dig the tough guys, monosyllabic dialog, shiny toys, loud guns and non-stop action, while ignoring the completely muddled and confusing plot, terrible story arc, random scenes added based on exit surveys of screening audiences, and misunderstanding of world politics. But hey, it's the Joe's and they represent all that's great about America, right? Booyah!

The film opens with the G.I. Joe team -- led by Duke (Channing Tatum) -- sneaking through the DMZ fence separating North and South Korea to extract a prisoner from the North Koreans. All of whom apparently really need new glasses because even when the GI's are directly under a spotlight, the Koreans can't see them crouched on the edge of the fence. And the prisoner? Why he's there, who he is, what happens to him afterwards, that's all on the cutting room floor apparently, because the scene had no relevance to the film at all. And that sets the tone for the entire movie.

As has been widely publicized, actor Channing Tatum's popularity took the production team by surprise so they delayed release of G.I. Joe: Retaliation to add more footage with Duke. Unfortunately, it's all obviously a last-second addition that adds nothing to the film at all, even for the most die-hard of Tatum fans. Soon enough it's Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson likable as always) who is in charge of the Joe's and the squad's on the run, wanted for crimes against the United States, while bad guys have taken over the country and, soon, the world.