…if you have a problem, if no-one else can help and if you can find them…
It’s hard to tell whether the forthcoming release of a big budget Hollywood adaptation of ‘The A-Team’ is a help or a hindrance to the medium budget Hollywood adaptation of a fairly obscure comic, as the plot concerns a group of kind hearted mercenaries who are supposedly lost in action and are now on the run.
‘The Losers’ may also may hampered by having a cast who are only known for specific other projects and types of roles.
I quite like Chris Evans, but it now seems like he only wants to appear in comic book adaptations, this follows two ‘Fantastic Four’ movies, a voice role in the CGI ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ (2007) film and precedes ‘Captain America’.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is an actor who seems to have been waiting 15 years for his big break after a memorable role in the underrated TV series ‘The Burning Zone’ in the mid 90s before last year’s scene-stealing turn in ‘Watchmen’.
Idris Elba, ironically is possibly the most famous actor in the cast because of ‘The Wire’, but he strangely didn’t plug the film when appearing on Jonathan Ross’ chat show a few weeks ago.
However while the odds seem stacked against the film (as much as they are against the characters) making huge amounts of money, I’m happy to report it’s another terrific comic book adaptation in a year that has already seen a couple of great comic book action movies – ‘Kick-Ass’ and ‘Iron Man 2’ – released, with ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The world’ and ‘Jonah Hex’ yet to come.
‘The Losers’ is a genuinely fun movie that only suffers from the modern obsession with a semi handheld camera look that made me have to shut my eyes for about 10% of the running time and flee the cinema immediately as the credits started to roll to recover from my motion sickness, but this doesn’t seem to affect that many members of the audience, so it’s obviously – for better or worse – just ‘the look’ of modern cinema.
As an adaptation of the original comic, it’s fairly faithful; indeed some scenes have been recreated verbatim, including a memorable set piece where one character ‘shoots’ henchmen with his fingers!
The first obvious changes from the sequential version is the order of the scenes: the comic unfolds in a non linear fashion over 32 issues, creating a mystery regarding who The Losers are and why they’re doing what they’re doing. However here, because it’s an origin story, it’s now in chronological order. This has both its advantages and disadvantages and one approach isn’t necessarily any better than the other.
Another change is a slight softening of some characters to make them more likeable and also an increased sexual tension and romance between Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana’s characters which doesn’t happen in the comic until towards the end of the run, which film-wise wouldn’t happen until the sequel, if this is successful enough to launch a franchise.
Again, this doesn’t feel like a betrayal of the original material, particularly as the writer of the comic – Andy Diggle – has said that he created it as a love letter to Shane Black, the writer of the ‘Lethal Weapon’ films.
It’s interesting that the successful comic book adaptations that aren’t superhero franchises – ‘Sin City’, ‘Road to Perdition’, ‘A History of Violence’, ‘Wanted’ etc. – are comics that were heavily influenced by genre films in the first place, but this doesn’t seem to have lead to a cultural cul-de-sac, rather it shows a healthy dialogue between the two media and that unsurprisingly Hollywood execs are attracted to properties which have elements which are familiar to them.
Certainly ‘The Losers’ now exists as a spirited action movie that can stand up next to some of the best and most underrated examples of the genre, reminding this viewer of the likes of ‘Swordfish’ and (obviously, due to a script by Shane Black) ‘The Long Kiss Goodnight’.
It’s amazing that the action film genre can continue after nearly 60 years of existence while treading familiar ground and still feeling fresh.
The climactic scenes of this movie may seem a little over familiar due to the location which was used for at least one ‘Bond’ movie, but the likeable characters, engagingly absurd set pieces and spirited direction (by a man with a surprisingly underwhelming career so far) make all the difference.
I really hope ‘The Losers’ does well enough to generate a sequel, so that the cavalier adventures of Clay and co. reach a satisfying conclusion on both page and screen, and even if the film struggles to achieve the recognition more familiar properties will undoubtedly get, based on the trailer for ‘A-Team’, it already seems like the better film of the two.
You can hear Alex’s interview with ‘The Losers’ artist Jock here.
