Theres not really a lot you can say about The A-Team. Its one of those movies that comes along every summer, where it looks like a lot of time, effort and money has gone into creating something deliberately okay but not great. It seems calculated to appeal to the widest audience possible, never doing anything to absolutely thrill them, but never offering anything thats likely to turn them off either.
Perhaps unsurprisingly these type of films are often the ones based on TV shows, old movies or other things, where from the very beginning people have been saying, whats the point in remaking that? And while sometimes they manage to overcome with, more often than not you end up with a movie like The A-Team, which has no reason to exist, other than to trade on the name of the 1980s TV show.
The basic idea is still the same, Hannibal (Liam Neeson), Faceman (Bradley Cooper), Murdoch (Sharlto Copley) and B.A. Baracus (Quinton Jackson) are four men convicted on a crime they didnt commit. In this case, already soldiers of fortune whove become an elite combat unit, the quartet are in Iraq trying to recover the plates that have been used to print billions in fake bills. However on the way back, theyre double-crossed, and the plates are stolen. Unfortunately for the A-Team, the army thinks Hannibal and his team are behind this, so they lock them up.
When Hannibal later gets information about where the plates might be, he decides to break out of jail, round the rest of his team up and try and clear their name. Unsurprisingly, this involves a lot of running around, blowing things up, quipping and causing general mayhem. In fact its so brash and loud theres little time for anything else. You dont really care about these men or what theyre doing, its just onto the next situation and the next thing that needs shooting, exploding or fighting.
It is utterly brainless, but then so was the TV show, but it was fun. So if this, in a way where you can pretty much feel your brain dribbling out of your ears, but it goes so far into the ridiculous that you can either submit and just enjoy the silliness, or youll just get angry that so much money could be spent on something that contrives from the opening moments to be so dumb.
I would tell you whether Neeson, Cooper, Copley and Jackson are any good as the new A-Team, but to be honest the film spends so little time on their characters its difficult to tell. Instead lets just say they do a decent job of running through the plot at lightning speed, making occasional jokes and generally seeming to have a whale of a time, irrespective of whats going on on-screen. The only real weak link is Jackson, who was never going to fill Mr. Ts shoes, but youd have thought it wouldnt have been too difficult to find someone with a little more charisma, and his acting inexperience shows. Jessica Biel pops up as a military woman whos also Facemans ex-flame, and once more seems shoved into a role thats based on her looking pretty, and ends up giving the impression shes a worse actress than she actually is.
The A-Team is an insanely dumb movie, with more holes than a sieve, but it certainly runs along at quite a clip, includes plenty of references to the original TV show for fans, and offers just enough fun, as long as you dont mind the fact you wont have to engage your brain for a second. In fact just take a look at the trailer, as the wham bam style, constant rapid-cut visuals (to be honest, the editor on this film is probably in a hospital somewhere now, suffering from exhaustion) and general dumb inanity are what The A-Team offers for nearly two hours nothing more, nothing less. If that sounds like your kind of film, youll have a blast, if not, youll just end up once more decrying the state of Hollywood filmmaking.
Overall Verdict: Instead of finding a reason to exist in its own right, The A-Team just tries for dumb, quick-cut fun. It delivers that, but little more.
Reviewer: Phil Caine