The Losers Reviews
An average movie
Posted : 11 years, 3 months ago on 17 January 2013 09:340 comments, Reply to this entry
The Losers
Posted : 13 years, 8 months ago on 11 September 2010 02:58"You liking the angle of the dangle?" Yes, absolutely, but I'm not liking THE LOSERS in the least bit. In fact, getting at least a glimpse of "the dangle" would have made my personal experience of watching THE LOSERS much better (not so for the 14-year-old boys that the film is aimed at, but ah well). The quote I included at the start of this paragraph is one of the few instances of wit that actually works in this film (as opposed to a bunch of other lines that fall horribly flat), and the quote is uttered by Jensen, who is played here by the steaming hot Chris Evans. If you had told me that the ONLY good thing about THE LOSERS would be Evans' performance and line delivery as a computer geek who has trouble talking to girls, I would've never believed it, but that's exactly the case. The sequence in which his character enters a building dressed up as a messenger, then goes up an elevator, and finally delivers a speech about certain "experiments" that the government performed on him is easily the only worthwhile material to be found in the movie, and that's too bad. Fortunately for Evans, as most people know, he's got what will hopefully be MUCH better things coming in the future. Aside from being my personal celebrity crush, I feel that he's been underrated as an actor for years, and I can't wait to see him as Steve Rogers.
The problem with the rest of the cast isn't so much that their performances are bad as it is that the script gives them no room to achieve even a second dimension. This isn't the type of film in which character development matters that much, but you really have a serious problem when two characters could easily be interchanged because you can't really tell their personalities apart. In order to please its target audience, the film features an awkward sex sequence (all PG-13 material) in which we essentially get to see several butt shots of Zoe Saldana. My suggestion for those looking for, um, stimulation is to search for pictures of her online, and for those who actually want to see her talent, look no further than the two amazing films she did last year (AVATAR and STAR TREK), both of which are way too many notches above THE LOSERS. She really has no room here to display any acting prowess.
But the bigger problem with THE LOSERS is that there's really not a single exciting, different or even slightly cool action sequence. All stuff we've seen before, usually done much better. There's a lot of poor editing here, and it'll be obvious even to people who don't know much about editing. The plot takes some ridiculous (yet never surprising) turns, the worst of which features one character committing betrayal, followed by another character who commits betrayal, and then the one who FIRST committed betrayal suddenly shows up on-screen as if everything was easily resolved. But without a doubt, the biggest sticking point is the horribly obvious, sequel-begging conclusion, which is what makes me so glad that there likely won't be one. I watch any movie that Chris Evans is in, but when a movie is this lame, it's easy to wonder whether the money was well spent on the ticket.
As a final note, I also have to point out that even though the majority of the cast is non-white and one of the main actors is Hispanic, the movie has a few subtle (yet easy to spot) lines that convey a clearly derogatory tone towards Hispanic culture complemented with a tone of white American superiority (notice the use of the word "rotting" while the characters are in Bolivia, followed later by the line "Welcome to the land of the living," and the context in which all of this is said). Any doubts I had about giving this a 4 instead of a 3 were quickly dispelled once I remembered that. It's hard to find it shocking, though, considering how brain-dead the film as a whole is. It's the worst I've seen in 2010 so far.
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The Losers review
Posted : 13 years, 9 months ago on 27 July 2010 04:180 comments, Reply to this entry
The Losers review
Posted : 13 years, 9 months ago on 19 July 2010 08:530 comments, Reply to this entry
The Losers review
Posted : 13 years, 10 months ago on 11 July 2010 03:33The EffecTs are Not tHa t Good But Its InterestIng To Watch..
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The filmmakers are the Losers!
Posted : 13 years, 11 months ago on 2 June 2010 08:34
One must admit, it takes serious guts to entitle a film The Losers, since lame jokes are just begging to be cracked. Already, the critics who panned this appalling motion picture have utilised the obvious "The losers are in fact the audience" in addition to the also obvious "What were you expecting? It's called The Losers". Added to this, another thing you can count on is the film's screenwriters referencing the title on several occasions. In the very first scene, the line "Hey, you losers!" is used, and from there the references keep on coming. Alas, these one-liners lack the zing you'd anticipate, while the action is unbelievably pedestrian and the film rapidly degenerates into the same type of PG-13 junk you'd expect Michael Bay or Brett Ratner to deliver (though the filmmakers did not even aim that high). The Losers (based on a series of comics) should have delivered over-the-top action and large explosions. Instead, The Losers is all about limits: limited budget, limited scope, limited effort and limited imagination. Even the movie's best moments are still abjectly disposable.
The movie kicks off in Bolivia, where the audience is introduced to the titular team of Special Ops warriors: sniper expert Cougar (Óscar Jaenada), tech expert Jensen (Chris Evans), escape driver Pooch (Columbus Short), second-in-command Roque (Idris Elba), and the leader, Colonel Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). When the operation goes south, The Losers attempt to rescue a number of children by sacrificing their place on their extraction aircraft. Unfortunately, the team is betrayed and their aircraft is destroyed, leading to the government believing that The Losers are dead. Subsequently, The Losers head underground while harbouring a thirst for vengeance against the man responsible for their predicament: evil government mole Max (Jason Patric). Eventually, the team are drawn out of hiding by Aisha (Zoe Saldana), a slick operator who offers them unlimited funding to exact their revenge on Max.
In other words, the generic plot is not unlike the television series The A-Team. This familiarity may have been easier to digest if only there wasn't an A-Team movie being released a few months after this film. Clearly, no-one thought the release slot through very well.
Once the plot balls start to roll, the movie perks up a bit with a few moderately entertaining action beats, but the entire enterprise is hampered by countless factors. The film's primary problem rears its ugly head at the beginning: the PG-13 rating. Director Sylvain White actually insisted upon the PG-13 rating (whereas the studio was prepared to fund an R-rated picture), and this decision affects The Losers in a major way. The action scenes feel as if they're perpetually pulling punches, with the camera awkwardly shying away from capturing gunshot wounds, and the occasionally choppy editing accentuating the problem. A lack of blood and profanity detracts from the reality of the movie, as it merely feels like a bland product tailor-made for maximum box office profits. The irony, of course, is that the film flopped anyway; it was a slow crawl to merely make back its $25 million budget! (Hey, the film was a loser at the box office!) Additionally, the majority of the CGI used in the film (mostly reserved for explosions) is woeful. The cartoonish incompetency ruins the atmosphere, and mars the movie's only mildly entertaining moments.
While the titular Losers have an arsenal of weapons at their disposal, the team are no-where near as fun as the '80s action heroes which they visibly strived to emulate. Director White, true to his origins as a director of music videos and commercials, was clearly keen to add visual flair to the picture, as he employs an armada of techniques (including jump-cuts and slow motion). The introductions of the characters, meanwhile, are intercut with images from the comics on which the film is based. This idea may be interesting in theory, but it's disastrous in practise - putting a strain on what should've been a lightweight actioner. The key problem, though, is the failure to maintain a consistent tone. A number of scenes are played with a knowing wink and seem intended for laughs, yet this tone is contradicted by the action sequences which take themselves too seriously and are inherently uninteresting. Perhaps due to budget limitations, the action is not gloriously B-grade or enjoyably over-the-top. Planet Terror is an excellent instance of a B-grade actioner filled with hilariously OTT action - this is the pedigree that would have served The Losers the best. Only actor Jason Patric delivers the material in the desired fashion. His Max is a cartoonish villain, though he's nonetheless forgettable amidst the tedious plot machinations.
At the end of the day, The Losers is an awful, tragically insipid action picture with action scenes that never rise above the run-of-the-mill. It feels more like a pilot for a television show than a feature film, to be honest, as the characters spend more time trying to be clever than allowing us to get to know them. A quick-fix shoot-'em-up needs more personality, style and verve than this. Worse, proper closure is sacrificed in favour of opportunities for sequels which we may never see due to the film's box office failure. Thus, The Losers is tonally schizophrenic, empty-headed, unsatisfying and disposable. There is absolutely no reason to see it.
3.2/10
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Good but, but lacks closure
Posted : 13 years, 12 months ago on 14 May 2010 02:110 comments, Reply to this entry