The Losers

Based on a DC comic book series, The Losers gives us a lot of stuff we've already seen, and not enough of a reason to want to see them again. The plot is lifted straight out of The A-Team (which is getting it's own movie adaptation in just a couple months), the villain and his plot comes from James Bond, and the characters are stock. They just have to know how to point and shoot, and make a lot of sarcastic quips. At least the movie has the sense to not take itself seriously. But I wish it had more of a satirical edge, rather than just making everybody a one-liner spewing machine.

It's certainly a ridiculous movie. It's the kind of film where an armored vehicle supposedly carrying the villain can be making its way through busy highway traffic, until suddenly the heroes arrive in a helicopter with a giant magnet underneath it, and lift the truck straight up into the sky. This happens in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of people, and nobody comments on it. We don't even see it make the Evening News. You'd think somebody would have something to say about it. It's also a movie where the leader of the heroes, Colonel Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) can bring a mysterious woman (Zoe Saldana) back to his hotel room, discovers he can't quite trust her (the accent she was using just seconds ago suddenly disappears), and engages in an elaborate martial arts battle with the woman that winds up setting the entire hotel room on fire. After pummeling each other and setting the room ablaze, the two discover they are on the same side, and casually walk out of the hotel, as police and fire trucks come screaming toward the burning building they just left.

Clay and his team of men (who are "The Losers" of the title) are a CIA team of black ops specialists at the beginning of the film. His team fills the usual requirements for rogue military heroes. There's the smart-mouthed Jensen (Chris Evans), the paranoid Roque (Idris Elba) who is always questioning Clay's orders, family man Pooch (Columbus Short) whose wife is expecting their first child soon, and the silent and deadly sniper Cougar (Oscar Jaenada). In the opening scene, they're preparing to hit the hideout of a drug lord in Bolivia, only to find out that there are children within being used as "drug mules". They disobey orders, and break into the hideout to rescue the children, only to see their efforts betrayed by a traitorous government official named Max (Jason Patric). Clay and The Losers are forced to go into hiding, but secretly vow to get revenge and return to their former lives in the U.S. That chance arrives when a woman named Aisha (Saldana) approaches them with the opportunity to get revenge on Max, and clear their names in the death of the children.

That's about as far as The Losers gets in the plot department, before it pretty much drops it, and turns into a series of wild, frantic, yet strangely pedestrian action sequences and narrow escapes. We get a few little bits of plot, most of which is not very developed. For example, the villain Max wants to get his hands on some kind of super weapon called a "sonic dematerializer" which, in a demonstration, can cause an entire island to implode and sink into the sea. It's an impressive sight, but it's also the last we see of it. We know he wants the weapon, but we don't know exactly what his plan is, or what his target is. It has something to do with high tech nuclear weapons called "snukes", and a lot of stolen money. It's not exactly clear, but it doesn't have to be. We just know he's evil. He's so evil, he kills his own henchmen numerous times with little thought. My favorite moment is the scene where a woman who is holding an umbrella over his head to protect him from the sun stumbles briefly, causing the sun to get in his eyes, so he turns around and shoots her in the head.

With its fast action and even faster comic quips (which flop more than hit), the filmmakers were obviously trying for an 80s action movie vibe, like the Lethal Weapon films. Unfortunately, the banter between the heroes is not very funny. Chris Evans gets a few laughs as the goofy Jensen (especially during a scene where he has to go undercover in an office building), but for the most part, the jokes and one-liners fall flat. When they're not trading comic barbs, they're usually shooting multiple bullets at hundreds of faceless goons, security guards, soldiers, and anyone else that tries to stand in their way of revenge. This is a very violent movie, and if it weren't for the fact that there's little actual blood displayed, this would probably earn a hard-R instead of a PG-13. The movie shows its comic book roots by having the heroes getting shot, knocked around, thrown through stuff, and outrunning fireballs, all without missing a beat or a sarcastic remark.

You know, I almost feel bad for not liking The Losers more than I did. It obviously wants to be a fun piece of action escapism, and it definitely tries. The cast has charisma, and there are a couple of stylistic sequences. The problem is that it's not enough. Everything feels generic and lifted from something else, almost as if the filmmakers were afraid to truly take flight with their own ideas. The action sequences use a lot of slow-mo and speed up effects which are supposed to get us excited, but only make us think of the numerous other movies that have action scenes just like this one. The characters are also sketchy, and barely rise above a single dimension. They get lost in the sound and fury of the movie itself, and never get a chance to be developed.

This is particularly strange, since the ending obviously hints at a franchise and further adventures for the heroes. The movie intentionally leaves a lot of loose ends, and seems like one big set up. Unfortunately, the movie had done very little to raise my excitement, and did not make me particularly long to see more. With the still-flawed but much better Kick-Ass in theaters, there seems to be very little point in seeing this.

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