Graphic novels are the new comic books. This DC Comics creation has a major emphasis on "comic." This cartoonish outing features a CIA black ops team that is betrayed (naturally!) but escapes because they had unknowingly allowed 26 Bolivian schoolchildren to evacuate in their place on a doomed helicopter. They toss their dog tags into the burning wreckage and disappear. Their motivation for the remainder of the film is revenge for those unwarranted deaths.
Yup. Lots of gunfire, mortar rounds, automatic weapons and blowie uppie stuff, all done with sardonic asides and character-driven humor, over- the-top violence and impossible odds. The heroes are heroic, the villains are villainous and the ending is never in doubt...well...maybe one little glitch...
Let's look at some of the actors:
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan ("Taking Woodstock") plays the team leader. Now that they are officially dead, he no longer has his military rank, so must lead his troops by force of personality; he has notoriously bad taste in women....
- Chris Evans ("The Nanny Diaries") is the comic relief; he plays the romantically awkward techie who also, courtesy of a stunt double, shows us some parcour-style action. I enjoy watching this impressively athletic genre and always want more....
- Idris Elba ('Stringer Bell' in "The Wire") is the crew member who constantly challenges their team leader. That testosterone-laden rivalry strikes me as sorta silly, but then I'm a little short in the testosterone department....
- Jason Patric ("My Sister's Keeper") is the arch-villain Max, new owner of the latest weapon of mass destruction; he has many of the good lines and makes the most of them. I never understood what was up with his left hand....
- Zoë Saldana ("Avatar") is the mysterious dame who hires our heroes to capture "Max," make big bucks, and avenge those poor little dead schoolchildren. Saldana has a GREAT agent! She has appeared in "Death at a Funeral," "Star Trek" and "Vantage Point" in less than two years....
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