The A-Team - Review

The A-Team - **1/2

 The A-Team is a revamped big-screen adaptation of the '80s television show with the same name, so it should be obvious how it would-- or should-- pan out. It's a more violent, more action-packed, and more modern than it's small-screen counterpart, and it sometimes strays too far for it to be considered fun.

Updated for today, The A-Team is a story about four Iraq War veterans (as opposed to Vietnam veterans) who are accused of a crime they didn't commit. In the show, the "crime they didn't commit" was barely ever discussed except for an episode or two near the end, where their past catches up to them. However, the movie gives specifics on what happened in the first act; that is, after showing how Hannibal (Liam Neeson), Face (Bradley Cooper), Murdock (Sharlto Copley), and B.A. Baracus (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson) meet for the first time.

The story? While trying to take down a corrupt Mexican general (or sheriff? I wasn't sure which, but never mind), Hannibal recruits B.A. to help save Face from being burned alive by the Mexican after Face's libido gets the best of him. They then hid out in a US Veterans' hospital located, for some reason, in Mexico. There, they recruit Murdock, who, as I'm sure you no doubt seen in the trailer, has tried to escape by jump-starting an ambulance with a defibrillator. This'd be clever if it weren't repeated so many times in television commercials. The four of them in a daring escape, use the hospital evac helicopter to lure the corrupt Mexican-- I'll stop, since what happens is rather clever.

Having spent eight years together in Iraq, they're relaxing before being sent home, but not before they're given one last mission by a CIA agent Lynch (in the show, Colonel Lynch was the man originally tasked with capturing the A-Team, but he was just a Military Police officer who led a squad) to recover plates used by Saddam Hussein's forces to counterfeit American currency. But there's another snag: the person in charge is Captain Sosa (Jessica Biel)... Face's ex, who warns him that the case is hers, and if anyone interferes... I'm still not clear on that part. Rest assured, that the A-Team take the mission, and it goes off without a hitch... until they're betrayed by a group of thugs: the movie's equivalent of a Blackwater team. Hired guns. The A-Team are arrested, then escape, and go after who's responsible.

If it seems as if I've said a lot, it's because the introduction and the set-up take a lot longer than I think they should have. It's as if they expanded the set-up because there wasn't enough plot to justify two hours on the screen, and-- if you haven't seen the show-- there was never much plot with the A-Team to begin with. I guess you can't have a movie where the A-Team keeps pulling wonderful plans, but somehow never get the bad guy.

Still, some of the plans are wonderful to see, even though a lot of the time, I sat there wondering what incredible luck they have for these plans to succeed, since a lot of the time, these plans act like three intertwined Rube Goldberg devices.

While the movie benefits by an increased movie budget as well as modern effects, the action isn't exactly up to par. Yes, there are more sleek explosions, and yes, they do have the benefit of CGI now, but there's also a heavy overuse of the so-called "shaky-cam," which includes sharp cuts that are very disorienting to the viewer (I know that the use of the word "shaky-cam" in reviews is cliched, but then so is it's use). Part of the charm of the TV series was that the action was explicitly spelled out for you, and you knew who was where, since part of the fun was seeing it as an elaborate game of chess.

Still, the movie knows it's fun (for the most part), and there is no over-the-top violence, though a lot of people DO get shot or blown up or die in one form or another, unlike the TV series where it was mostly guns being fired but no hits. And there's no graphic romance other than some slight innuendo, few kisses and Face's charm, so it's not a ridiculous "sex for the sake of sex"-type movie. The actors fit their roles: Sharlto Copley as the crazy fool Murdock was especially wonderful, and "Rampage" Jackson wasn't imitating Mr. T. Though I think casting Liam Neeson was a bit of a stretch. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a wonderful actor, but Neeson doesn't have that constant smirk that George Peppard's Hannibal did, reassuring the audience that it's only a fun TV show, and that no one's really hurt. Neeson's Hannibal smiles a lot, and has fun, but it's not quite the same.