'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' has a different tone to the first movie.

The film's director Jon M. Chu - who takes over the reins from 'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' helmer Stephen Sommers - has revealed that although the upcoming blockbuster is a sequel, it also acts as a reboot to the franchise following lukewarm reviews for the first movie.

He explained to BANG Showbiz: ''That was a delicate balance. Both the challenge and advantage that we had going into 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' was that we had a great movie before us, but it was a different tone movie than what I knew of 'G.I. Joe' and I wanted to get in there and have fun with it.

''In the tradition of 'G.I. Joe', every few years it gets reinvented whether it's the toy line, the cartoon, the comic book, or even the movie itself. To have the opportunity to be part of that tradition and reinvent it with the amazing cast that we have, that gave us a huge advantage.''

The film's star DWAYNE 'THE ROCK' JOHNSON also praised Chu for bringing ''great passion'' to the director's chair.

He added: ''That spirit of trying to elevate 'G.I. Joe' was easy because we have a filmmaker who's new to the brand of 'G.I. Joe'. I love Stephen Sommers, who directed the first movie - he gave me my break in Hollywood with 'The Mummy Returns' - but we have Jon Chu, who loved 'G.I. Joe', and had a great passion and deep connection with 'G.I. Joe'.

''Plus, we also have a studio in Paramount who does franchises very well, from 'Transformers', 'Star Trek' and 'G.I. Joe'. They realised there was room to elevate 'G.I. Joe' and make a better movie the second time around.''

'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' is out now