The Losers
Directed by: Sylvain White
Cast: Jeffery Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Ibris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada, Jason Patric
Running Time: 1 hr 35 mins
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: April 24, 2010
PLOT: After a whole bunches of lazy cut-scenes meant to look cool, five black ops narrowly survive an assassination and then decide to root out their would-be assassin in the least believable way possible. Zoe Saldana shows up to improve aesthetics and Jason Patric is the bad-guy with a cheesy affect and one glove.
WHO'S IT FOR? I really put some thought into this, and I'm still not too sure. I'm hung up on the inherent definition of "who's it for," aka, "who's going to enjoy this and not regret the admission." I think, if anything, this movie should be used as a paperweight or for skeet-shooting practice.
EXPECTATIONS: I thought it was going to be one of the dumbest movies I'd ever purposefully bumped into.
SCORECARD (0-10)
ACTORS:
Jeffery Dean Morgan as Clay: Take George Clooney, throw in a dash of Javier Bardem, and then remove all discriminating taste in movie scripts, and viola! You've got Jeffery Dean Morgan. He looks great in that borrowed, copycat kind of way, but he's trapped in this movie like a somewhat sexy, slightly uninteresting fly in a jar. There's a lot of tell and don't show going on with Clay. He's always going on about morality and loyalty, but he doesn't actually do any of those things. It's like I decided to stride around a hospital telling people I'm a brain surgeon, except less entertaining. Score: 1
Zoe Saldana as Aisha: Oh, Zoe! What did you do? I have always liked you and eventually, I'll forgive you for The Losers, but you must never betray our trust like this again. Not like this. Of course you can pick the occasional stinker, but nothing this flamboyantly stupid, please. You are so much more than the skinny hot chick in itty-bitty panties. Score: 1
Jason Patric as Max: I feel liberated. I get to give my first zero, ever. It never even occurred to me to strip someone completely of a score until I saw Jason Patric shaming himself in The Losers. This character reached a new level of dumb cliche. The lack of originality, routine predictability, and bizarre affectation is off the charts as far as infuriatingly stupid goes. The only way Max is watchable is if he's in a bad Kung-Fu movie with Tony Jaa from Ong Bak: Thai Warrior; then at least we can be certain Tony Jaa will open up the rage in the climactic scene, and spank the ever-living sh*t out of this excruciating caricature. Uh-oh! Plot spoiler! Look no further if you REALLY want to see The Losers...at the end Max gets away! Weeeeeee! Absolutely no satisfaction whatsoever! Ah, it's glorious like a...a something that's really not that compelling at all. Score: 0
Chris Evans, Ibris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada as the Rest of the Losers: They all look pretty, especially Jaenada (yum). It would've been better if the movie was interactive and these guys were action figures we could all pick up and play with, because then I bet we could've come up with something really badass. You and I, the collective we: let's pick up some GI Joe action figures and go sit in a sandbox somewhere with like, a big plastic dinosaur, a few evil robot figurines and one of those bright, red dump trucks. And we can film it. And we can watch it again and again, and get way more enjoyment out of it. Score: 1
TALKING: The dialogue isn't just bad by itself, but the actors don't know how to play off each other. So it's like Big Steve's Embarrassing and Painful Emporium: Everything Must Go! If two characters are speaking and one character is meant to interrupt the other, the other character will actually STOP mid-sentence and wait to be interrupted. It's like watching seven-year-olds dressed up like giant pieces of fruit and running into each other on stage. And the few lines that could be funny, the few lines that actually have potential, are ALWAYS dependent on how another character responds and the responder unfailingly shoots it down every time. So you think, "Oh, this could be funny! Oh, I might actually laugh here...oh. Nevermind. Onto the next." Score: 1
SIGHTS: You know how people always say "it's like such-in-such on steroids" and what they mean is it's taken something cool and made it burlier? Well, The Losers is like an early 90's attempt at an action movie on steroids, and not in the good way. It's the dark side of steroids. It's the shrinking penis, chronic acne, and uncontrollable bouts of rage side of steroids. This movie thrives on those idiotic slow-mo scenes where people are all walking in a line, everyone wearing sunglasses, the hero's shirt is unbuttoned a little, the heatwaves from the sun creating a ripple effect across their ideal masculinity--that hasn't been en vogue since...drawing a blank here...someone help me out. It's one long unintentional SNL skit. It's like the director watched "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions" on youtube and used it as a guideline for serious action sequences. Score: 1
SOUNDS: Holy cow, the music is bad. At the very beginning there's a pretty hot mix of "Black Betty," but that song leaves so abruptly it's like it realized where it was and slunk out before anyone could associate it with The Losers. And again, there's another scene that uses Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" that comes close to being funny until the idiots writing the screenplay manage to chase it off with total improbability. The score itself is awful--like playing preset Casio music. Score: 2
PLOT SPOILERS
BEST SCENE: Um...hmmm...okay, by "best" do you mean "coolest scene in the movie" or do you mean "most tolerable compared to all the rest of it?" Personally, any scene that let me stare at Cougar (Jaenada) was okay, since he's like a skinnier, less talented version of Johnny Depp. And for the dudes out there, there's a lot of gratuitous close ups of Zoe in her underpants. I guess that's pretty tolerable...
ENDING: Good news, everybody! They left it open for a sequel!
QUESTIONS: What the f*ck?
REWATCHABILITY: HAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAA *SNORT* HAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAAA! HAAR *COUGH* HAAAAAAAAAA!
OVERALL
This was one of the dumbest movies I ever purposefully bumped into. Have you thought to yourself lately, "Gosh, I wish I could watch a giant turd of a movie based on a comic/graphic novel cannibalizing shamelessly off worthier predecessors for 95 minutes." And then did you take it one step further? Did you then think to yourself, "I wish I had some way to flush an hour and a half of my life down the john; 95 minutes in this fleeting life of mine; 95 minutes I could've spent doing more enjoyable, productive things like laying face-down on the carpet or trying to get the dog to drink Bud Light." Then by gad, The Losers is tailor made for you, my friend! Run right out and see it, assuming you don't forget to dress yourself and you can finally master the mechanics of the front door.
And if you do exist (and I, personally, have to categorize people who will enjoy this movie in with Big Foot and unicorns) then it will serve as a warning to the rest of us. After all, who wants to sit next to the guy with doorknob shaped bruises all over his face who isn't wearing pants? Not I!
Go see Kick Ass instead.
FINAL SCORE: 1/10