3/5
(15+) US. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoë Saldana, Chris Evans
A growling, paranoid graphic novel about a renegade military unit transformed into a teen-friendly bro-out, The Losers isn’t half bad: unmemorable, but fast and flashy, and less bloated than the kind of action number that keeps John Travolta in Learjets. Plugging into the zeitgeist for films about dark forces pulling strings in government, it opens with the unit – still kosher – carrying out covert black ops. They’re in Bolivia to do the CIA’s (presumably illegal) bidding, taking out a drugs baron.
Only when they arrive, the baron is using children as mules. Their handler, Max – the puppet master – orders them to strike regardless. Refusing, they come under attack from their own side and, presumed dead, disappear off into hiding promising payback. When the plot turns – as it inevitably must – to Max amassing a nuclear arsenal, we’re told he purchased them from ‘the multinational-maker-of-everything’. Funny, but it’s a reminder there’s nothing new going on here. All of which might leave fans of the comic hankering for its foul-mouthed fatalism. Here, it’s more like ‘Dude, where’s my AK?’
