We’re not copyright lawyers or anything, but whoever owns the rights to the “The A-Team” may have a strong case for a lawsuit after viewing the trailer to “The Losers.” The very idea of the film is exactly the same: members of a CIA special ops group, betrayed and left for dead, decide to hunt down whoever set them up. The only thing missing in this trailer is a van they all travel around in. And before nerds start clogging up our comments section, yes, we know it’s based on a graphic novel, but that doesn’t make the concept any more original.
One of the Playlist members noted that at the very least, this looks better than the forthcoming “The A-Team” — but just barely. While it doesn’t have any ridiculously stupid set pieces involving tanks shooting down planes in midair, it is just as loud and dumb. The sexy babe factor is up a slight quotient (though truth be told, “The A-Team” marketing department hasn’t quite cashed in their Jessica Biel chips and there is still plenty of time to go), but the amount of gunfire and guys smiling and practically high-fiving each other as shit blows up is pretty much the same.
Our hopes were never high to begin with on this one, director Sylvain White, best known for the cinematic gem “Stomp The Yard” and the straight-to-DVD “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer,” seems all too willing to crib from other films. The glossy trailer seems to be a pretty obvious hybrid of “Ocean’s Eleven” aesthetic style and “Smokin’ Aces” smirking shock-and-awe. The cast — Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Stringer Bell Idris Elba, Jason Patric — are a lot of “hey, I know that guy” actors who are talented, and deserve better than this.
“The Losers” opens on April 9th, but we’ll just wait one more week and see “MacGruber” instead.
<a href=”http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&from=customplayer_en-us_movies_movietrailershub&fg=MsnEntertainment_MoviesTrailersGP2_a&vid=1b9d070f-aff2-47f6-8a86-9b2b44ec4fc6″ target=”_new” title=”‘The Losers’ Exclusive Look”>Video: ‘The Losers’ Exclusive Look</a>