Yet another comic book creation few have heard of, gets dusted off and dragged into the cinematic light, whether the source material is strong enough no longer appears to matter.

We have four soldiers each with specific tactical skills, think “A-Team” with a small modicum of reality tossed in. Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is in charge, with Jensen (Chris Evans), Roque (Idris Elba), Pooch (Columbus) and Cougar (Jaenada) fulfilling the various military specialties required, from transport to communications, sniper and heavy weapons.

When a mission in Bolivia goes tragically wrong the Black Ops team find themselves betrayed and inconveniently still alive, despite the worst intentions of shadowy uber villain “Max” (Jason Patrick). Brimming with one liners and despatching even his own minions for daring to drop a sun umbrella in his presence, he his hell bent on acquiring and using the usual, “weapon of unimaginable power”.

The team are ostracized, living in the Philippines forced to work in sweat shops making toy dolls and other menial tasks, whilst idly plotting their revenge on the architect of their downfall. However, with no money and resource, any efforts they make are doomed to failure. Enter Aisha (Zoe Saldana) who not only bank rolls the team but provides some soft lit action movie type sex scenes rather incongruously with Clay. Whilst her motives are unclear, her line of credit is clearly good and essentially she wants the same end game, Max dead hopefully in an action movie painful, slow mo’ sort of way.

The premise has been done before and much better in other films, wronged team seeking bloody revenge, explosions and wall to wall wisecracks. The action is passable, in a teen friendly rating sort of way. Most cold blooded deaths occur strangely just off screen but the interplay between the team is plausible enough. However, this movie from director Sylvain White adds nothing to the genre, apart of course from Zoe Saldana firing a bazooka, which admittedly is quite cool.

None of the actors get to stretch their acting abilities, perhaps Roque gets the most work and appears believable in the role. Patrick chews scenery at every opportunity but somehow comes across all wrong, almost a parody of a super villain. The whole premise and storyline is preposterous of course and none of it stands up to any close inspection.

The film is slickly put together and at 93 minutes, thankfully does not hang around long enough to annoy anyone but ultimately this is no more than a brief diversion. Probably more suited for a male audience looking for a quick “lite” action fix.

Box office would suggest that the title predicted how well this was received by audiences.

Summary

Big, loud, dumb action fun that adds nothing new but is moderately entertaining whilst it lasts.

Cautiously recommended for a wet Wednesday afternoon, when the sock drawer is already sorted.