The A-Team review (2010)

The A-team is an adaptation of the classic tv series from the 80s. I’ll say right now that I was a fan of the show. It was mindless, stupid, silly, hell, it could even be argued that the show glorified violence, but I still enjoyed it immensely.  So The A-Team movie has a great cast. We got Liam Neeson (Schindler’s list, Star wars, Kinsey or more recently Taken) replacing George Peppard as the cigar smoking leader John “Hannibal” Smith. Bradley Cooper (Alias, The Hangover) replaces Dirk Benedict as Face, the ladies man/whore. He more or less serves as a female eye candy. MMA fighter “Rampage” Jackson plays B.A. Baracus (AKA Mr. T). The best performance however goes to Sharlto Copley (District 9) as the apparently insane pilot Murdock. He was played wonderfully by Dwight Schultz in the tv series, but I actually thought that Sharlto Copley was slightly better. Neeson, Cooper, and Rampage all give fine performances, but their passable in comparison to their TV counterparts.
 
Other cast members include Jessica Biel as Face’s former lover and a first lieutenant in the DCIS who spends most of the movie pursuing The A-team. She probably gives the worst performance, because I didn’t by her as this strong, independent, tough military type of woman for a damn second. It's not that I don't think a woman could be that kind of character, I just didn't buy Biel as that kind of character. We also got Patrick Wilson playing a CIA agent named Lynch and does fine with what he’s given. In the end, despite Wilson's talent (Hard Candy, Watchmen, Angels in America), it's still disappointing since it's not as good as it should be.

So to the movie itself. Well…not a big fan of how it starts off. B.A. baracus drives an awesome sports car, beats some guys up, then replaces the sports car for a soccer mom van which he really loves for some reaosn.. It’s supposed to be based off of their signature van for the show, but I just though “What the hell” during that scene. So the team is introduced than 8 years later The US is pulling out of Iraq. (Weird right. How did they know?) There’s some stuff with concurrency plates and shit like that. The A-team is ordered to steal them and that guy dies blah blah blah. They get framed as thieves, dishonorably discharged, arrested. Stuff like that. We don’t really give a damn about that crap. We came here for explosions and shootouts, right?
…yeah…
Well so this is when the movie kicks in. They escape and work with agent Lynch with clearing their names and shit. So the action scenes pile up, but here’s the first problem that I noticed. THE CGI! This movie has way too much CGI and it doesn’t look that great either. Clearly Director Joe Carnahan has some things to learn. He should watch a Tony Scott Movie. If you take away CGI, it saves money and the film looks cooler. The A-team television series didn’t have any CGI. Still, most of the action scenes are admittedly pretty fun. It’s implausible, but what did you expect?

The humor, at least the scenes with Sharlto Copley, are also quite good and I’m glad that the film didn’t take itself too seriously. However, as the plot develops, we get some apparent plot twists that really aren’t that surprising as well as a really big plothole. Also, BA Baracus doesn’t even have his signature Mohawk for 90% of the goddamn movie. Then he takes this whole vow of not killing people which really bothered me. Not because I’m pro-violence, but this movie is about escapism. Now it’s trying to be deep and it takes some of the fun out of the action scenes.

And now I’m sounding picky I know, but it didn’t quite have the character depth that the show had. In the show, I really loved the characters and really wanted them to succeed. In the movie, they’re fine. I liked Sharlto Copley a lot, but I just didn’t have the same emotional connection.

All this aside, The A-team is generally faithful to the tv show. Its noisy, silly, and dumb, but none the less fun and amusing. It’s nowhere near as good as the best action films., but it’s passable entertainment.

Overall rating: 3.5 out of 5

SPOILER ALERT!




Ok. Here’s the plothole that I’m talking about. The A team retrieves the plates for Agent Lynch and they’re about to give it to him. So what does he do? He decides to betray them and attempt to kill them? Why? I have no idea. They were about to give him the goddamn plates. Why not kill them after they gave him the plates? Jesus Christ.