Posts Tagged ‘Peter Berg’

Short Take: See things blow up a la ‘Transformers’, and Liam Neeson get a paycheck

Director: Peter Berg

Screenwriters: Erich and Jon Hoeber

Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Alexander Skarsgård

Length: 2h 11m

Synopsis: Alex Hopper (Kitsch) is a thick-headed, stubborn, undisciplined underachiever. Natural, then, that his brother Stone (Skarsgård) forces him to enlist in the U.S. Navy with him. While procured Alex has fallen for and wooed a fetching blonde named Samantha (Decker), who just happens to be the daughter of his superior, Admiral Shane (Neeson). Meanwhile, the U.S. government has secretly sent a signal to a distant planet that closely resembles our own. Only shortly after being sent its receivers send their own signal back in the form of spacecrafts which land in the waters near Hawaii during a Naval training exercise that the Hopper brothers are part of. Alarm spreads. The aliens close off the immediate area near Hawaii with a dome forcefield, and the battle begins. The aliens on the outside of this area try to usurp the same equipment used to reach them in order to contact home, which cannot be allowed to happen for fear of calling on more aliens. Will our heroes save the day and defeat the cosmic invaders?

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Zoe Saldana ("Avatar," "Star Trek") in Warner Bros.' "The Losers" - Opens April 23rd

IGN.com published a set visit article yesterday about their trip to Puerto Rico where Warner Bros. is currently filming The Losers, based on the Vertigo graphic novels of the same name. The high-octane action film is being directed by Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard) and stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen), Zoe Saldana (Avatar), and Chris Evans (Sunshine).

The story is about a former CIA black ops team that got double-crossed and tries to get revenge. The part of that story that IGN walked in on is the ending, which according to the article will supposedly entail a plethora of gunfire (naturally). Grasping the tone and style of the film was not easy for some of those involved, apparently because the story mixes moments of sincere drama with one-liners and gags. Chris Evans explains how he first reacted to the script.

“I just knew that Peter Berg wrote it, it was Warner Bros., it was a war-type movie,” Evans recalls. “And by page 20 I was a little confused as to what they were going for. Because there were a lot of jokes. There were times of high drama, shootouts and someone’s cracking a line. And I said, ‘What is this?’ Because I think nowadays we want … Bourne Identity . You want very raw, very real, very authentic stuff. And the days of the Die Hards and Lethal Weapons, those movies where there was room for some humor, you don’t see a lot of them. So I put the script down on page 30 and I called my agent and I said, ‘What is this? What am I missing? I’ve got to go back and start over and get the right tone in my head. I’m not thinking clearly on it.’ And he said, ‘This is Joel Silver. It’s based on a graphic novel. Why don’t you read the graphic novel first, then crack the script?’ So I went back and started over and it made a whole lot more sense. And I really, actually thought, ‘You know what? There’s room for this.’” – movies.IGN.com

The article as a whole provides a number of details, none of which would likely be considered spoiling. Those details, though, are mostly on the level of tidbits, failing to indicate much besides how difficult it is to shoot an action movie. As someone who still has yet to look into the graphic novel series, a rudimentary exploration into any of the characters or discussion with the director about what he’s aiming to accomplish would have helped. Besides these shortcomings it should prove to be an interesting read for those anticipating the release of The Losers, which opens April 23rd.