The Losers

As you may have guessed by now, I am not the most impartial of movie reviewers. I have many biases and am influenced by things that sometimes don’t even make sense to me. One of the things I hold most precious is the idea of film inspired by comic books or graphic novels. Growing up, I think I may have owned a combined total of six comic books – a Daredevil, a Spider-man, an Iron Man, a Superman, a Batman and one with an Indian dude I can’t remember. I read and re-read those books until the ink faded from their pages and my sister threw them out. Bitch. They were my escape from the bullshit of day to day family drama. I dreamed of being the hero, of being powerful and strong and brave and not a scared awkward fat boy with glasses.

Needless to say, I get really pissy when Hollywood fucks up a comic book adaptation. I still haven’t forgiven George Clooney for Batman & Robin. Making a good movie is hard at the best of times, especially when filmmakers don’t understand the material they are trying to adapt. I never read the Losers, I wasn’t much of a DC universe kind of guy. But this movie is seriously badass! Holy shit is this ever a good movie!!

Let me get this out of the way ... the set up for the Losers sounds a lot like the A Team. An elite commando unit gets set up by a shadowy figure named Max, now they’re out for revenge and to try to clear their name. The unit’s commander is named Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who is morally incorruptible but easily tempted by vagina. Chris Evans plays Captain America ... er ... Johnny Storm ... sorry, Jensen, the wise cracking communications guru and wacky tshirt wearing motherfucker. There are three other dudes in the unit but they aren’t played by people as famous as the first two so if you want to know who they are, watch the movie or go to www.imdb.com and look them up. I ain’t doing all the work for you. Coming in to make life even more interesting is Zoe Saldana, who hires the boys to kill the elusive Max with promises of regaining their old life again.

I loved the pace, the soundtrack was exquisite (first chase sequence ever to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”), the way the movie was shot to resemble action panels in a graphic novel, the humour was awesome and the action was fantastic. Evans is a human highlight reel and is genuinely funny. Saldana needs a sandwich, seriously, but has an aggressive sexuality that makes you want to mount her like a cheetah. There are some plot twists and no one is really totally clean but the ending hints at future sequels. Thank fuck.

I rate the Losers 8.5 out of 10