80s TV classic gets the big screen treatment. If you can disengage your brain you'll have a blast.
Reviewer disclaimer: This is written from the perspective of someone who wasn’t quite an 80s kid and somehow managed to go through his formative years without ever watching an A-Team episode. I had a very deprived childhood…
You’d be forgiven for making a double-turn if you’re heading to the movies this month. We have not one but two 80s classics being remade for a 2010 audience. A-Team hit last week and Karate Kid is following soon. I guess Hollywood will look anywhere for re-make ideas, as it’s far more cost-effective than coming up with something original…
My expectation levels going into this were pretty low, given my aforementioned A-Team-less childhood and a general disdain for remakes. And while I wasn’t burdened by the weight of expectation conversely I didn’t get to have warm fuzzies whenever the film referenced the TV series.
You need more than nostalgia to get you through a movie though so how does it stack up? I was pleasantly surprised by the film but it certainly doesn’t border on greatness. This is very much a Friday night disengage-your-brain kind of flick. Imagine this: The A-Team are in a tank, freefalling through the air, having been ejected from an exploded plane. In order to navigate themselves to safety and at the same time take out the missiles coming their way, they use the tank’s gun as a duel action navigation/munitions device. A flying tank. Now how you react to that image effectively determines whether you want to see this movie.
Big, brash and incredibly stupid. Who would expect more from Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces)? I still found it solidly entertaining, in large part to some great casting. Liam Neeson proves his action role in Taken was no one-off, even if I would have liked to see a bit more bad-assery from him. Bradley Cooper was born to play Face, he slips into the role like a duck to water. Sharto Copley as Murdoch was my personal highlight, showing his District 9 breakout performance was no fluke. A great combination of quirky mannerisms and charisma. Even UFC star Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson as B.A. Baracus was ok, and far better than his early film outings. The one weak link was Jessica Biel as her presence kept making me compare A-Team to Stealth, which is never a good thing.
You can’t exactly fault a movie like The A-Team for being over-the-top, given that’s exactly what the TV series reveled in. Still, considering writer Michael Brandt promised this new version was going to be a lot grittier it does venture into territory that even my stratospherically suspended sense of disbelief can’t quite get to.
It’s pointless explaining the plot of a movie like The A-Team, which is why I’ve left it up till now when you’ve already decided if it’s your kind of movie. There is a short set-up showing how the team came together in the 90s. All of them are ex-Rangers, thrown together by coincidence. These early scenes gave me a good indication of what I was in for – some of the action scenes were excellent, like a great helicopter chase while others were terrible – jump cuts on speed with no control over the action. Baracas’ opening fight was particularly bad for this. One moment he’s picking up his truck and the next all the guys are on the floor. Something happened in between but I’ll be damned if I quite know what.
The bulk of the move is set in the present, with an attempt at relevance by setting it in Iraq (yawn). Over the last eight years The A-Team have established themselves as a highly regarded special ops group and take one last mission before leaving Baghdad. Of course it goes horribly wrong and they all get dishonourably discharged. They break out of prison, and, still wanted by the government, survive as soldiers of fortune…
I imagine most A-Team fans will enjoy it, and if you’re looking for something mindless, yet enjoyable to unwind to at the end of the working week then this will certainly do the trick. Personally it’s just a tad OTT.
***
Andrew Cozens