It's fun but as frivolous as you can get

At first I thought that The A-Team movie somehow came to theatres earlier than its advertised release date of June 11. The Losers is a lot like its little brother though: it looks the same, talks the same way, except that it suffers from second child syndrome. It has no direction but tries to enjoy the road as much as it can. Maybe it should have been called The B-Team.

The Losers is about a team of five members of a CIA black ops force that get set up in Bolivia during a failed sting on a South American drug lord. Seemingly double-crossed by their leaders, the five are forced to fake their own deaths. While incognito they learn that it was really the work of a sinister and mysterious inside player with deep pockets and zero remorse. Max (Jason Patric) is on a mission to buy some ridiculously fantastic bombs called sonic dematerializers so that he can manufacture an international war on terrorism in order to further his own economic and political goals. Our heroes team up with an equally mysterious woman named Aisha (Zoë Saldana) to track Max down and put a solid stop on his evil designs.

It’s based on a graphic novel like so many other Hollywood creations so it’s easy to understand why it is so colourful but banal. It’s mostly fun except when a helicopter carrying two-dozen rescued children gets blown up by Max’s orders. Nothing brings a light-hearted action comedy to a halt like the sight of a burning teddy bear.

Still it maintains a fairly engaging story with some decent action sequences interspersed with the required slow motion shots of the protagonists walking while looking cool and determined. One in particular will likely land on the podium for best fight scene at the next MTV Movie Awards. Saldana looks like she weighs less than 50 kilograms but holds her own when Aisha gets into a hotel room bust up with Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the burly leader of the group of renegades. It’s an even match with no clear winner.

This is one of those shows that relies heavily on the geniality of the performers to play otherwise unlikeable characters. The story is ridiculous, the McGuffin (the bomb) is preposterous and the dialogue induces many groans just like many others of its ilk often do. However, the casting is genius, especially with Chris Evans as Jensen, the chatterbox computer expert. He should find a role opposite Ryan Reynolds so that they could just play off of each other in the same easy, amiable manner.

As revenge plays go, The Losers should have been lighter than it ended up being since I don’t think anyone was meant to take it seriously. It’s mostly fun and mostly forgettable, likely only to be remembered for that one fight sequence. It’s a good one though, a must see for real aficionados.