Deadly only in its dullness, the coma-inducing,
comic-book-adapted action flick “The Losers” aims to serve as a
placeholder until “Iron Man 2” arrives with the summer’s heavy
artillery.

That “The Losers” and its ragtag band of Special Forces operatives
fail to achieve even that modest goal speaks to the filmmakers’
utter lack of imagination as well as the busy smugness with which
they offer their smorgasbord of nothingness.

What’s interesting about the movie has more to do with the people
involved than the mess they’ve splattered mostly off screen. (The
film’s PG-13 mixture of bloodless violence and unseen killings
seems almost quaint now in the wake of the gonzo brutality seen in
last week’s comic book headliner, “Kick-Ass.”)

“The Losers” comes from the caffeinated DC/Vertigo comic series by
writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock. Diggle calls the comics his
“man-crush love letter to Shane Black,” the highly paid
screenwriter behind the “Lethal Weapon” movies.

That man-crush was likely shared by Peter Berg (“Hancock”), who
adapted Diggle’s comic with writer James Vanderbilt (“Zodiac”),
Berg’s collaborator on the 2003 tongue-in-cheek jungle adventure
“The Rundown.”

These guys are capable writers, comfortable in the genre. So what
happened? Instead of producing a heady homage to slick, ’80s action
movies or a winking salute to Sam Peckinpah and his wild bunch of
losers or even a faithful adaptation of a serviceable comic, Berg
and Vanderbilt have watered down the material to the point of
irrelevance.

We first meet our Special Forces agents in the Bolivian jungle
where they’re on a search-and-destroy mission to take out a nasty
drug lord. Each Loser has a single name (Clay, Cougar, Pooch,
Jensen and Roque) and exactly one defining characteristic (in order
named: brooder, cowboy hat guy, family guy, wacky T-shirt guy,
brooder who doesn’t like the other brooder).

The mission goes bad. A bunch of cute ragamuffins are killed in the
most perfunctory manner possible. The Losers get mad and vow
revenge, going after the American-flag-lapel-pin-wearing CIA “super
spook (Jason Patric channeling Goldfinger) who engineered the
betrayal.

Director Sylvain White (“Stomp the Yard”) tries hard to give the
thin material a kind of tossed-off casualness, hoping the
explosions and heavy-metal soundtrack will fill the empty spaces of
the convoluted plot. It’s all noise, no substance. The line at the
concession stand probably has more tension than what’s happening
inside the theater.

As the team’s leader, Jeffrey Dean Morgan comes off as a
budget-version George Clooney. Better is Chris Evans, cast against
type as the nerdy computer specialist. Evans has a nice touch with
the recycled banter and delivers the movie’s funniest moment with a
spot-on version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

Geek It Girl Zoe Saldana (“Avatar”) is on board, too, fighting,
shooting, disrobing, usually at the same time. The movie’s one
great image has Saldana silhouetted on top of a mountain of cargo
containers, a missile launcher at the ready. What’s she doing here?
Well, as Tom Petty sings, even the losers get lucky
sometimes.

“The Losers,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for
scenes of intense action and violence, a scene of sensuality and
language. Running time: 98 minutes. One and a half stars out of
four.