The Losers

The Losers Movie Poster 2
Originally uploaded by christopher_aquino

When assignment goes terribly wrong Clay and his special ops team “The Losers” fake their own death and go rogue, hiding out in South America until they can find a way to take out the man that tried to kill them Max. When Aisha appears on the scene she offers The Losers a chance not only to go home, but a way to find Max an kill him.

The Losers is one in a long line of comic book adaptations, and Sylvian White does not shy away from this, even using panels from the book in the opening credits sequence. The film is funny, action packed and full of stars that I like – so it took me awhile to identify what I thought was off about the film, and I finally realized it came down to two things: the tone and the ending.

The film, like the book is an action comedy. This is something that is deceptively hard to do, especially when your main characters are basically assassins and with the exception of Joss Whedon or Phil Alden Robinson, I can’t think of many people that can do that tone really well. While I enjoyed the comedy and the action in The Losers I couldn’t shake the feeling the whole time that I was at times watching two separate films that didn’t seem to fit together very well. Then there’s Max…the villain…he needed an image and dialogue makeover because not only was he really not villainous or funny but I found him downright cheesy – straight out of a B movie.

Then there’s the ending. I understand The Losers is a series and they’re probably hoping to turn the film into a franchise if they can, but the ending bothered me. The only thing I can think to describe it is that the ending felt so intentionally open ended; there was only a half resolution and nothing was really wrapped up. On top of that there continued to be post-ending sequences over the credits – while funny, they didn’t fit.

What did work greatly about this movie was main cast. Every one of the “Losers” was cast perfectly. I am a huge fan of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana so I am always willing to watch either of them for two hours, and in this film they both kick some major butt. Then there’s Chris Evans, also known as the new Captian America, and that man is charismatic as hell and the only one that could pull off that level of comedy, geekiness and bravado in one character.

The Losers is enjoyable. But it struck me as the popcorn of comic book movies. I almost feel as though the writers should have pulled away from the source material just a little to make sure the film felt like a complete movie, not just the first part of a series.

Director: Sylvain White
Writers: Peter Berg & James Vanderbilt
Clay: Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Aisha: Zoe Saldana
Jensen: Chris Evans
Roque: Idris Elba
Pooch: Columbus Short
Max: Jason Patric
Cougar: Oscar Jaenada

Supernatural: Season 1

Supernatural has always been a bad show for me to follow, not because the show is bad or written poorly, but because through school, retail jobs and everything else you can think of I was not able to follow the show week to week until season four. To make up for this, as it might be Supernatural’s last season I am watching the first three seasons again on DVD so I can see the episodes I missed, and put the ones I did catch in context.

Season one has a spectacular first episode that perfectly introduces us to Dean & Sam Winchester and their world. Dean & Sam are brothers whose mother was killed by a demon on the night of Sam’s 6 month birthday. Their father John quickly learned evertything he could about the supernatural world and took up the profession of hunter – he took the boys from city to city as he tracked cases and demons trying to help protect inhabitants from the demonic world that actually surrounds them. When season one starts Sam is finishing Standford, about be a law student and propose to his girlfriend after living estranged from Dean and his father for years. All of that changes when Dean shows up at Sam’s door telling him Dad’s been on a hunting trip and hasn’t checked in for a few days. Out of family loyalty Sam leaves his girlfriend Jessica and tries to track down his father with Dean only to uncover that their father is genuinely missing and returns home just in time to see Jessica murdered by the same demon that killed his mother. This even forces Sam out of the “normal” world he’d been living in and back on the road with Dean to track their father and find the demon that killed the women they love.

This is an amazing show, and one of the things I love about it is that it is not episodic, but the show runners include a recap at the beginning of every episode that is used as a opening theme almost. The recap shows you “then” and “now” and gives you the large chunks of info you need if you are just tuning in for the first time or are a long time viewer trying to keep up with a complex, and now, five year plot line.

One of the fantastic things about Supernatural is that while the first few episodes of the show seemed to be monster-of-the-week style, it became quickly apparent that Eric Kripke had a grander scheme in mind for the show and everything was actually carrying on from episode to episode and building towards a grand plot. Season five is bringing up things brought about in season one and as I watched season one I saw things that would be brought back in future seasons to have a grander meaning, one of the biggest is Sam’s abilities and the Colt – a gun that can kill anything.

Perhaps what helps sell this show over and over is the relationship between Sam & Dean and the chemistry between Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. The two characters are so well written as siblings and brothers, and the actors themselves add that extra element of genuineness that makes you really wonder if Jared & Jensen knew each other before the show even started. These characters are written as the most genuinely accurate brothers I’ve ever seen on TV; they interact like my brothers would act – teasing, playing pranks, calling names, and bending over backwards to keep each other safe no matter how annoyed they are.

Supernatural’s first season has a lot in common both in tone and execution with The X-Files and that is not a coincidence. Some of the lead people on the show worked on The X-Files in its prime. This tone didn’t stay much longer after season one as once Kripke realized he would be allowed to have more than one season he did what most show runners do and slowly evolved into a more unique style for his show.

I cannot wait to see where Supernatural goes this season and if Kripke decides he can do a sixth season, but I am really looking forward to catching up on all the DVD’s as quickly as I can.

Creator: Eric Kripke
Dean Winchester: Jensen Ackles
Sam Winchester: Jared Padalecki
Bobby: Jim Beaver
John Winchester: Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Sam: No. No, whatever you wanna say, you can say it in front of her.
Dean: Okay...um...Dad hasn't been home in a few days.
Sam: So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later.
Dean: Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days.

Watchmen

Before the Watchmen there was the Minutemen
Originally uploaded by Bucky Rocket

I did see and enjoy Watchmen in less than 24 hours. This film is quite good, entertaining, and worthy of adoration. However, that being said there are some problems with Watchmen.

I do have to say that my first pet peeve with Watchmen is some of the music. I understand that Snyder wanted to keep the music rooted in the era of Watchmen but for me when two of the songs were used it ended up being utterly laughable.

The first was the use of Flight of the Valkyrie’s when we first flashed to Dr. Manhattan & the Comedian participating in the Vietnam War. This was such a cliché and took me out of the moment completely. After Apocalypse Now that song cannot be used without very specific connotations and imagery. It shouldn’t be used for Vietnam any more.

Secondly, I thought using the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen when Nite Owl & Silk Spectre finally hook was downright laughable – and I’m not the only one that thought that – a majority of the audience at both showings I went to laughed at this song choice and this is not supposed to be a laugh educing scene.

I must also express without giving any spoilers that I liked Watchmen but after reading the graphic novel I am not sure if I like how they changed the ending. The original ending in the graphic novel plays on the very 1980’s mentality that was afraid of the outside world; now the ending plays to the very contemporary mentality of the enemy within and I am not sure I like that. I think time will tell which is the better ending.

What I do have to say is that I am very sorry that Alan Moore fel the need to exclude his name from the credits of Watchmen; Moore has been burned time and again by the Hollywood system and when he found out Watchmen was going to be a reality he took his name off of it without ever considering it. As rumor has it Moore refuses to ever see the film. Ultimately, I think that is quite sad as Watchmen preserves as much of Moore’s tale that is physically possible.

Edward Blake: God damn I love working on American soil, Dan. Ain't had this much fun since Woodward and Bernstein. Congress is pushing through some new bill that's gonna outlaw masks. Our days are numbered. Till then it's like you always say, we're society's only protection.
Dan Dreiberg: From what?
Edward Blake: You kidding me? From themselves.

Watchmen

Watchmen: Comedian
Originally uploaded by AsceticMonk

Since its publication there has been the universal theory that Watchmen is one of the single most brilliant pieces of literature ever written, and possibly right next to Atlas Shrugged as one of the most unfilmable pieces of literature.

I am one of the ones that agrees - Watchmen is unfilmable – but Zach Snyder may have gotten as close to filming Watchmen as anyone can every hope to get. There are simply things in Watchmen that cannot fit into a movie: Hollace Mason’s autobiography, the news stories of missing artists & scientists, the relationship of Sally with her husband/manager, the newsstand, the black freighter, the lesbian cab driver; if everything that were in the graphic novel were in Watchmen the movie would have to be at least six hours long, or 2-3 separate movies.

Watchmen at its core is the story of a group of retired superheroes; it is told from the perspective of a world that is our reality (only slightly tweaked to change history), a world that actually relied on heroes until they began to see them as a threat. The question behind the story is how do these characters deal with being more than the average citizen when they are no longer allowed to use those skills. For some it eats away at who they are, some have no sense of identity, one feels like he is no longer a member of humanity and only one of them remains active despite being a wanted man. This is a story that explore the morality and humanity of the superhero myth.

When reading the graphic novel my favorite character was Comedian, which is actually quite disturbing as he is possibly one of the most amoral characters in history, but he is the character that galvanizes the plot of the story, and he is by far the most symbolic of all the characters. In the filmic version Comedian is played with brilliance by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I have loved watching this man at his craft since I discovered him on the CW’s Supernatural and I hope he has a long career on the big screen.

All in all Watchmen is a damn fine interpretation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel, but it does have a few things I have issues with. However, that is for a different review as I saw Watchmen twice in less than 24 hours.

Director: Zack Snyder
Writers: David Hayter & Alex Tse
Laurie Jupiter/ Silk Spectre: Malin Akerman
Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan: Billy Crudup
Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias: Matthew Goode
Walter Kovacs/Rorschach: Jackie Earle Hayley
Edward Blake/Comedian: Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl: Patrick Wilson
Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre: Carla Gugino
Hollis Mason/Nite Owl: Stephen McHattie
Richard Nixon: Robert Wisden

Adrian Veidt: It doesn't take a genius to see the world has problems.
Edward Blake: No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for them to handle.