A Team Review

[Westside Steve]

The A Team

Fox

PG 13 117 min.

 

 

OK. Yet another installment of the inconsistent genre of remade TV shows.

It’s a quick and easy way to start a project by grabbing an already familiar and popular theme. It’s also dangerous. THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES took beloved and well-known characters and turned them into vulgar and cheap cartoons. I hated that one.

STAR TREK tried to match the characters exactly as possible and set the story as a prequel. That one I loved. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE vaguely emulated the idea of the show but decided to turn the whole thing into a silly Tom Cruise love fest. More rubbish.

Now with THE A TEAM, director Joe Carnahan (director of the mildly interesting SMOKIN’ ACES) takes four popular characters and updates the origin of the team.

Now the four mercenaries guys are unfairly disgraced Iraq vets helping good people out of bad situations for profit.

Well, the biggest of the films problems lies in the casting. None of these new guys suck but the original cast is so memorable that they’re hard to recreate.

The naturally sullen Liam Neeson (Hannibal) is a hell of an actor but he lacks the grinning devil may care charm of George Peppard. Bradley Cooper comes closest as the smartass “Face,” Sharito Copley can’t match the manic Dwight Shultz as “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as B.A. Baracus is (pardon the pun) some pretty weak T.

The plot itself is mishmash about some stolen US mint printing plates and a few groups of bad guys who’ve framed Hannibal and the boys in order to get them.

There’s a lot less of that familiar clever trickery and misdirection going on here than the usual blowing lots of stuff up and shooting. The noise and non-stop action do get tiresome. And it seems to be a lot more than the meager plot demands.

There’s also a small love hook between Face and an ex lover turned Captain but mostly it’s just noise and a generous sprinkling of references to “a plan.”

 

To be honest THE A TEAM started for me as a soft B but as it dragged on sank to an unimpressive C+.

Another half hour and it might have been in D territory.

And it’s too bad because the premise lends itself to a lot of different stories. It was a lot more fun when the guys helped out everyday people in tough situations.

 

C+

 

WSS

 

Email westsidesteve@AOL.COM

[The Gipper]

I wouldn't be quite as harsh as you were on it, but that may be because I never really watched the old TV show much.

 

The biggest thing on the effects if just the stupidity that they think audiences are armed with. They would take an inert object like a freight car, have it fall to the ground and explode into a ball of flame! Now what wouldn't that be tantamount to say, taking a rock and throwing it on the ground and having it explode in flames? Things just don't do that. Inert objects don't spontaneously explode. Otherwise I didn't mind the plot or the characters too much though you are right, the guy playing B.A. was nowhere near as flambouyant as he should have been.