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So-so

Avg. Critic Score: 44 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore^® based on all critic reviews

Information for Parents:

Iffy for 14+

Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

88

Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert
The movie gets the job done, and the actors show a lot of confidence in occupying that tricky middle ground between controlled satire and comic overkill. It's fun. Read full review
63

Rolling Stone | Peter Travers
As an action fix to hold you before the summer explosions start, you could do worse than The Losers. It's no more than an efficient time-killer. Read full review
60

Variety |
The Losers is the sort of pyro-heavy exercise parodied in "Tropic Thunder," and no amount of production polish can hide the hollowness beneath its junk-food high. Read full review
58

Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman
Basically, it's "The A-Team" meets "Rambo" meets "Mission: Impossible," with a mission that's one part trickiness, four parts blowing stuff up. Read full review
50

Washington Post | Michael O'Sullivan
The first dumb-fun action movie of the summer season has arrived early with The Losers, a loud, loving homage to guns and testosterone based on a series of comic books about a renegade band of CIA operatives. How dumb is it? You might actually kill a few million brain cells just watching it. Read full review
50

The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt
The film never is boring, but it's never engaging, either, because its heroes hit every target in sight, while the villains, despite holstering much greater weaponry, never hit anybody. So forget about suspense. Read full review
50

The New York Times | Manohla Dargis
About the only thing that distinguishes this iteration from those of yore is that the violence is more explicit, the edits are faster, and no one has a stogie stuck in his kisser. Read full review
50

Los Angeles Times | Betsy Sharkey
There are enough clever bits, in that exploding-bodies kind of way, to inject some fun into the party. White and director of photography Scott Kevan, who collaborated on "Stomp the Yard," have some seriously inventive visuals, which at times are smash-cut fabulous. Read full review
50

USA Today | Claudia Puig
Though they have plenty of lethal weapons at their disposal, the Losers are nowhere near as fun as the '80s action-flick heroes they emulate. Read full review
25

San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle
The Losers is boring. It's predictable. It's so, so active, and yet so, so dead. Read full review

Metacritic link View more reviews for The Losers on Metacritic

Information for Parents

Common Sense Media says Iffy for 14+ Violent but quirky movie aimed at teen comic book fans.

What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this often funny action movie -- based on a comic book series from 2003-06 -- is filled with comic book-style violence, with lots of guns, knives, slo-mo fight scenes, and explosions. The movie centers on a group of ex-soldiers who are betrayed and left for dead; part of their motivation is problem-solving and part is revenge. The movie features strong, but infrequent language (one use of "f--k" and several uses of "s--t"), and a non-explicit, though highly stylized sexual scene. Without any huge teen-appeal stars (aside from Avatar's Zoe Saldana), the movie will mostly appeal to die-hard comic book fans and action junkies.

Families can talk about the violence in this movie. Was it disturbing or thrilling? What factors contribute to making violent scenes more or less intense? Were there any scenes that upset you? Why or why not?
The movie contains some stereotypical images of women as "arm candy," or playthings for male characters. Why do you think the filmmakers included this element? Do you think male and female viewers will react differently to these scenes?
How important is teamwork to the group's success? What are the challenges and rewards of teamwork in your own life?

The good stuff

Positive messages: Though there are some examples of triumphing over the odds and teamwork, the violence of the movie is constant and lighthearted -- sending some unrealistic and potentially confusing messages about weapons and violence.
Positive role models: Though some of the team members keep dangerous secrets from one another and occasionally hurt one another physically, for the most part the team's trust for one another is commendable. Clay, the leader, acts partly out of revenge, but he very clearly has a humanitarian side too. He races into intense danger to rescue some children, and puts the welfare of his men before his own mission.

What to watch for

Violence: The movie is filled with extreme comic book violence, including fistfights, kung fu fights, shootouts, knife fights, bullet wounds, blood spurts, dead bodies, and giant explosions. (One explosion is more like an implosion that wipes an entire island off the earth.) The villain is an unscrupulous arms dealer who is looking for the latest destructive technology -- "snukes" -- to sell to the highest bidder. Most notably, the bad guy blows up a helicopter filled with kids (only seen from the outside). There are also brief images of a cockfight (a gory gambling event in which two roosters are placed in a ring and made to fight one another to the death).
Sex: Two main characters have sex; the scene shows them kissing and removing clothes in a glossy, slow-motion scene, and then lying together under the covers afterward, but no nudity and nothing explicit. Zoe Saldana wears a series of very sexy outfits. Several women in bikinis appear as "window dressing" and/or playthings for certain characters. One character wears a suggestive t-shirt depicting a woman eating a hot dog. Chris Evans changes clothes in an elevator and is caught by four women, who gaze at him approvingly. We also see a shadow puppet play of two godzillas having sex.
Language: "F--k" is heard once, and "s--t" is used several times, though language in general is fairly infrequent. Other words include: "hell," "Oh my God," "anal," "balls," "dick," "ass," "son of a bitch," and "Goddamn it."
Consumerism: A helicopter crashes into a huge Dunkin' Donuts sign.
Drinking, drugs and smoking: Clay and Aisha drink in a bar, including downing a shot of tequila in one gulp. Aisha brings a bottle of liquor to Clay's room, but they don't drink it. Later, characters open a bottle of champagne and drink.

Common Sense Media An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.