Clash Of The Titans (remake/2-D) + Cop Out + The Losers (2010/Warner Blu-ray w/ DVD)

 

Picture: B & B-/B- & C+/B & C+     Sound: B & B-/B- & C+/B & B-     Extras: D     Films: C-/D/D

 

 

For early 2010, Warner Bros. released a hat trick of action duds and only one did any business.  Now they are on Blu-ray and DVD to continue their first run ways.  The hit was a remake of the 1981 MGM film Clash Of The Titans, the duds were Kevin Smith’s Cop Out which is now undoubtedly his worst film and The Losers, which is an awful rehash of the Watchmen style with absolutely, positive no point, which says something because Watchmen – The Movie was a disaster.

 

Director Louis Leterrier gave us the two overrated Transporter films, then did a little better on The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton.  Now he turns out this silly, overly dark retread that was a hit thanks to jumping on the early 3-D boom by being converted at the last minute to capitalize on the mega-success of James Cameron’s Avatar.  Well, this looks a little better in 2-D (it certainly looked brighter without the 3-D glasses in the theater, which is always a sign of a bad, last minute hack conversion), but the awful new screenplay (three writers, including Phil Hay, who ruin Aeon Flux in its horrendous live action version) makes this a real bore.  It is similar to the 1981 film in some ways, but the digital effects cannot touch Ray Harryhausen’s work and one sequence that wants to be Starship Troopers meets Transformers is especially obnoxious.

 

Star Sam Worthington was also the star of Avatar, but he cannot find anything interesting to say or do here and is boring as a result, giving Greek Mythology a bad name and making any quest seem like a waste of time.  Liam Neeson, Jason Flemyng, Gemma Arterton, Ralph Fiennes, Mads Mikkelsen, Izabella Miko, Nicholas Hoult, Polly Walker, Pete Postlethwaite and Elizabeth McGovern are among the highly wasted supporting cast and except for a few moments that work, I never want to see this in any “D” again.

 

With the Weinstein Company in flux, Kevin Smith has made his worst film yet by “staying in the game” of making films by helming Cop Out, an amazingly dreadful, awful cop/buddy comedy that shows why that cycle is long dead.  So many such films have bombed lately anyhow, so they made another one?  Written by TV writers Mark & Robb Cullen, Bruce Willis walks through the film bored and partner Tracy Morgan give the absolutely unfunniest performance of his career, so bad that he may not be able to go lower if he tries.  Everyone chases after a valuable baseball card in Brooklyn and many shootouts result.  A good script did not.

 

Finally, last and almost least, Sylvian White’s The Losers (based on Andy Diggle’s graphic novel comic book) is a tired, contrived, phoned-in, phony, lame, would-be action bit about mercenaries on a mission who become betrayed in the process, a formula excuse for them to be even more idiotic.  No one seems to be having a good time, it is boring, the explosions and other loud gun and action noises are not storytelling and the cast (Zoë Saldana, Chris Evans, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jason Patric in his worst film since Speed 2 and others) are just picking up a paycheck and you get to pay for it.

 

Zero is authentic or believable in actor turned hack filmmaker Peter Berg’s screenplay, co-written James Vanderbilt (deeply in The Rundown mode, versus a real motion picture like Fincher’s Zodiac, but Berg directed the former so that figures) and it is a disposable mess that is nothing to be proud of.

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on each is not very impressive, with all of the flat shooting, digital effects, image manipulation and not-so-super Super 35mm filming.  At least Peter Menzies, Jr. on Clash brings some style to that film, while Scott Kevan (Death Race) could not make Losers a winner if he shot it in IMAX despite his talents.  The anamorphically enhanced DVD versions included with all Blu-rays here are worse and sometimes much worse, so play the Blu if you must even watch any of these duds.

 

All also have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, but they are typical of the bad, overly blended, screwed-up soundfields that never were we get from, such bad films all the time, though Cop Out is more of a dialogue-joke-based piece so it is just badly recorded all around.  No real sound demo moments can be found on any of these discs and anything that sounds good is not sounding as great as competing films in the genre.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on the DVDs are poorer, worse and more compressed-sounding.

 

Extras in all editions include Digital Copy for PC and PC portable devices.  Clash has additional scenes and Blu-ray exclusive featurette on Worthington, Alternate Ending that does not impress and Maximum Movie Mode, the latter of which Cop Out also offers, in which Smithy is joined by actor Sean William Scott for some reason.  Losers adds the Zoë & The Losers featurette and Blu-ray exclusive Deleted Scenes that would not have saved the film, Band Of Buddies: Ops Training piece, Losers: Action-Style Storytelling bit and preview for the far more promising Batman: Under The Red Hood animated feature going direct to Blu-ray and DVD.

 

Try that one instead of these and you’ll not feel as ripped-off.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo