Movie trends are strange things.

I get why Armageddon and Deep Impact happened to come out in the same year (face it, a giant asteroid is one of the awesomest ways to destroy Earth — those things took out the dinosaurs) — but what unfathomable turn of the zeitgeist caused filmmakers to burp up Truman Capote movies in consecutive years? Right now, we're cresting a wave of A-Team knockoffs: The Losers, The Expendables, and even The A-Team.

-- Local show times, theaters, trailer.

Luckily, I love that stuff. Yay! Even so, I'm starting to wonder why their teams are so formulaic: the brains, the sniper, the nerd, the guy who blows stuff up, etc. Couldn't these guys use a dedicated medic? We're several hundred years into the age of gunpowder; how valuable, really, is it to be the world's greatest knife fighter? Isn't that a little like being the world's best wheel-chiseler? Ah well. The Losers may bring nothing new to the formula, but at least it's an entertaining one.

After being framed for the murder of 25 children, Jeffrey Dean Morgan's five-man special ops team is forced underground. They're found by Zoe Saldana, who offers them the funds and intel to take out shadowy arms dealer Jason Patric, the man who betrayed them.

But Patric's a hard man to track down — and he's negotiating the purchase of a set of sonic superbombs. If Morgan's team can't bring him down, he'll use the bombs to set off global war.

A globetrotting tale of gunfights, break-ins and kidnapping entire vans with helicopter-mounted magnets, The Losers is fast-paced and action-heavy. Good for it: the more time we spend watching Saldana break chairs over Morgan's weathered head, the less time we have to contemplate how every aspect of the movie feels like a glossy photocopy of something we've seen a hundred times before.

You might be surprised to learn their team includes a tech geek who's not so smooth with the ladies! A daring character choice, to be sure. Among type-defying casting, this ranks right up there with the unusual romantic comedy Godzillaless in Seattle or the maverick lead in Sergeant Fluffy Bunny. In another unorthodox move, Morgan cares too much for his men.

Likewise, the story's an interchangeable assembly of romance, betrayal and infiltrating security-thick buildings in order to learn the location of the next place that must be snuck into before things go bad and they have to shoot everyone after all (but bloodlessly, thanks to The Losers' PG-13 rating).

Patric's cartoonish psychopathy fits right in with all this recycled pulp. When he's not ordering people shot, he's shooting them himself. It's a role that should inspire such fierce forehead-slapping a gray milkshake pours out your ears, but Patric's gleeful amorality is a salty treat. I knew you had it in you, Michael from The Lost Boys!

Turns out the rest of the cast is pretty good, too. Chris Evans must store his comic talent in his sleeve-busting triceps. Idris Elba's post-Stringer Bell career continues with his 243rd consecutive thankless role, but he's menacing as ever. They pour liquid energy (some call it "vodka") straight down their flat characters' throats.

Ultimately, it's the team that makes a movie like this work, and The Losers' cast rises above its material, playing up the script's humor and keeping pace with director Sylvain White's fast action. It may be silly, unsophisticated, and forgettably unoriginal, but The Losers is funny and breezy enough to throw a few dollars at.

Grade: C+