This is an incredible, fast paced reboot of one of the 80’s most beloved television character teams.  It captures the spirit of the show in a modern day version, combining elements and heart from both eras into one action packed flick.  And yes, the tank scene was one of the most fun moments in movies today.  Forget about Willing Suspension of Disbelief, this is what the A-Team is about.  Unorthodox style, AKA The JAZZ,  leading you through non-stop action, is always the case for Hannibal Smith.  Only now, he’s not confined to the elements of television storytelling.   A popcorn ride, this movie has everything, from start to finish.  This IS the A-Team in it’s pure intent.  You will not be disappointed if you are a fan of the show, or not.

Liam has made the most of his character, as opposed to the other actors.  A well-played Hannibal results in movie form.  Cooper overacted the part, Face’s enthusiasm seemingly unwonted, and over warranted; as  everyone who watched the show will point out; Face whined and detested violence.  However, this thoughtful version of Face works well on film, with a small need to be toned down.  In fact, when Hannibal wasn’t around on the show, it was usually Face who would come up with the plan (ergo the movie).   Minus the gold, Rampage Jackson’s portrayal of Bosco Baracus was flawless.  Copley’s vision of Murdock was a bit more unpracticed than Schultz’s Murdock, but it works for the film and would not work for the show.  Finally, Biehl’s character, Sosa, contains the flow of the film, spotting Lynch and ultimately working to help them.  This new version of Face plays very well with having a former love interest.  The focus wasn’t on their relationship as much as it could have been, and I applaud that.  That would have been boring.  It was in the past, where it was meant to be.

Maybe, in the sequel, the past lives of all the characters will be explored, but for now, I will enjoy the rush.

Overall, this movie was highly enjoyable.  Funny, fast-paced, campy; the adrenaline rush is what you would want to experience as an evolution of the show’s intent.  Bigger and badder was always A-Team style and this was a tribute to that spirit.  All that was missing was the theme music as they built something out of junk lying around.  This movie contains the original heart of the show, with modern twists built in for the next generation of fans.  It’s fine to reboot for the youth of today, as long as  you don’t insult the original fans (us old folks now) of the show.  Carnahan has kept it real for all.

SPOILER ALERT:

Do NOT leave before the credits end - or you’ll miss the cameos which run afterward.  They did not make it into the movie, which is sad, but at least this way you won’t miss them.

Watch for “Reginald Barclay” in the background, a tribute to Dwight’s character on ST:NG

Carnahan is the name of one of the judges that court-martials the team (Nametage alert)

555-7264….

Look for Hanniibal’s toe tag:  Dr. Schultz…

Does El Jercto mean Jerk?

The shot of Hannibal firing from inside the van with the doors wide open, comes rebooted straight from the pilot.  There is also a reverse shot when the van door is open to reveal the Colonel from a chopper credit shot in the show’s pilot.

My favorite part in the movie?  Think Bachelor Party- only with a tank instead of a school bus.

Origin Story Alert:

In the series, The A-Team is already at large, 10 years after the frame bank job of Hanoi went down.  It was all history.  In the film, we see the wheels move in motion, which lead to them being fugitives.  In the series, we see the results.  This is clearly a retooling to re-establish the characters in the modern age.  We meet Morrison, still alive and doomed to die to turn the team into fugitives.

The show tells us briefly who was with who first.  The movie shows us why and how, these characters came together and verifies the order in which they came.

One of the most important aspects of the show was B.A.’s inability to fly, which was exploited but never explained.  The movie now provides us with significant reason for this fear.

TV show VS Movie:

Morrison:  General Russell Morrison = Colonel Samuel Morrison.  Although the name and rank have changed, Morrison is pretty much the same character.  In “Firing Line” we learn that Morrison was a traitor, and set the team up with unofficial orders to rob the Bank of Hanoi, but is killed before they can be verified.  So much is true in the film.  One major difference is the relationship between Hannibal and Russ, in which no previous relationship was ever established in the series.  Morrison was actually a pal of Fulbright’s.

Lynch = Lynch = CIA VS Colonel Lynch, who they escape from at Fort Brag.

Pike VS Curtis to kill Morrison

One million yen, missing = money plates stolen

Since when do they call Hannibal – BOSS? In the show it was Hannibal or Colonel…  NEVER boss.  But OK, it works.

I had one bit of disagreement with the film’s portrayal of B.A., okay, Two.  An orange Lamborghini?  Yeah, maybe that would work for Face, not B.A’s style.  And 2, he finds religion in prison?  EPIC FAIL….   Why is he seemingly the only character in this film that has more than one fatal internal conflict?  So you cheer him on when he reshaves the Mohawk?  B.A. never lost his nerve in the show, it was usually Face..

There were no ties to B.A. and his helping children.  Face, also, was missing a past.  You’d never know he was an orphan, unless you watched the show.  As far as Hannibal, not much changed.  He never had a past in the show or the film.  No one ever called him “John”, either, I guess that secret’s not out yet.  In the show, we learn why he CHOSE the name Hannibal.  It’s not established or even hinted at as being a pseudonym in the film.  Face was never originally “Templeton”, either.  That was left out of the film, but in the series, you find out in “Mind Games”, he’s had several name changes.  This is simply superfluous information and not necessary for the film.  We definitely have a NEW Murdock here, the insanity is present, but the “is he or isn’t he”  nutso is somewhat absent.

The entire concept of The JAZZ has been eradicated.  The one thing missing from Hannibal and his cigar that defined his leadership and it was left out of the film.  Bow your heads people!  Or go stick your finger in a light socket to reminisce.

The days of disguises and the Aquamaniac are dead.  Or are they just beginning?

FLAW:

1) The gun is tossed away from Hannibal yet somehow magically appears right under his chair so he can reach it..

2) Pike shoots one window after being hit by the car, then jumps through another one..

One final note:

Gerald McRaney was PERFECT to play Morrison.  Kudos to choosing him to fill the shoes of the man who betrayed the team as a precursor to all their troubles on the lam.   A star of his own 80’s show, he now represents an 80’s legacy in new cover.

1)

‘The A-Team’ gets a C+
By Tom Charity, Special to CNN
June 11, 2010 12:31 p.m. EDT
In the “A-Team” remake, the TV series’ Vietnam vets now come with Desert Storm credentials.

* The ’80s remake is the story of four wrongly convicted U.S. Special Forces Rangers
* The film stars Liam Neeson as Col. Hannibal Smith and Bradley Cooper as Templeton Peck
* Movie is randomized string of death-defying set pieces interspersed with unfunny quips

(CNN) — With a choice between “The Karate Kid” and “The A-Team,” your local multiplex takes on a distinctly Reaganite vibe this weekend; empowerment fantasies for the whole family. (Well, maybe not Mom — unless she can find the new Joan Rivers documentary playing somewhere.)

Definitely not a remake, as director Joe Carnahan (“Smokin’ Aces”) keeps insisting, “The A-Team” movie is the story of four wrongly convicted U.S. Special Forces Rangers taking it to the bad guys. There’s Col. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson), the leader and chief strategist; Templeton “Face” Peck (Bradley Cooper), a good-looking charmer with an eye for the ladies; HM “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock (Sharlto Copley), a pilot who is also certifiably insane; and BA Baracus (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson), a pillar of strength, an African-American with a mohawk and a mortal fear of flying.

Nothing vastly original so far, but at least Carnahan has updated the theater of war: The TV series’ Vietnam vets now come with Desert Storm credentials.

Confusingly, the movie begins south of the border in Mexico, where one of Murdock’s scrapes brings the four together in a bullet-spewing, rocket-blazing run-in with a corrupt generalissimo — the action movie’s version of a meet-cute.

Several years later the quartet is back on active duty in Iraq, mounting a covert op to seize currency plates Saddam Hussein has been using to print U.S. banknotes. When this scheme goes awry, Hannibal and his honchos wind up behind bars, by which time we are given to understand their moral superiority to the heavily implicated “Black Forest” private security firm, a mercenary outfit obviously modeled on Blackwater.
Video: ‘A-Team’ answers your questions

But bad as the Black Forest “thugs” are, as in last month’s soldiers-of-misfortune flick, “The Losers,” the real heavy is working for the CIA.

It’s not much of a plot, and Carnahan makes minimal effort to give it any kind of credence. Did I mention Jessica Biel is in this, too?You need to know this, but someone might also have tipped off the screenwriters, who seem to have been caught completely unawares.

The movie is a mess, a randomized string of splashy, death-defying set pieces interspersed with unfunny quips and globe-trotting antics (shot in Canada). In the most imaginative stunt, the A-Team flies a tank 2,500 feet over Germany. In another, the port of Los Angeles goes up like Pearl Harbor. When it comes to the fireworks, Carnahan lays it on good and thick.

This is mindless, all right, but is it entertainment?

The target audience is so wide these days, a splatter gun may be the best guarantee of a hit. Take away the heavy artillery though, and there isn’t much to suggest why “The A-Team” deserves the blockbuster treatment while “MacGuyver” merited “MacGruber.”

Come to think of it, “MacGruber” has the better cast: Liam Neeson can chomp on a cigar as well as George Peppard ever did, but he’s not exactly blowing smoke rings. Sharlto Copley (from “District 9″) mostly signals Murdock’s lunatic tendencies by letting his accent roam freely over the British Commonwealth, and Rampage Jackson never threatens to supplant Mr. T in the memory.

Only Bradley Cooper seems to be enjoying himself in an appropriately cavalier movie star manner.

For the rest, “The A-Team” gets a C+. Must try harder.

2)

Movie review: ‘The A-Team’

There is no ‘why’ in ‘Team,’ an overly long, complex and loud action film based on the hit 1980s TV show.

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film CriticJune 11, 2010

It may be true, as “The A-Team’s” Col. John “Hannibal” Smith insists, that “overkill is underrated,” but you wouldn’t know it from this film.

Overly long, over-complicated and overflowing with what sounds like billions of bullets and beaucoup broken glass, this film version of the hit 1980s TV series about soldiers of fortune is an underwhelming experience. I pity the fool, as TV star Mr. T might say, who mistakes this for genuine entertainment.

That may sound unduly harsh, especially for a movie that was never intended as an Oscar contender. After all, didn’t director Joe Carnahan practically dare anyone to raise any objections by saying “If you don’t like a tank flying out of a plane, then you just don’t like summer movies.”

“The A-Team” does appear to have designs on being a more interesting film than the one that appears on the screen. The director and his screenwriting partner Brian Bloom (who share writing credit with Skip Woods) have talked in interviews about the character work that went into the film’s quartet of team members, but it was to no avail.

Known to all who remember the series, these characters, aside from Liam Neeson’s team leader Smith, include suave lothario Templeton “Face” Peck ( Bradley Cooper), crazy-like-a-fox pilot H.M. “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock (Sharlto Copley), and B.A. (for Bad Attitude) Baracus (Quinto Jackson, a.k.a. Rampage), the Mohawk-wearing muscle of the group.

Although attempts are made to flesh out these individuals, they do not succeed in making them involving. In fact, the more we see of this quartet, the less we like them: an excess of hearty camaraderie comes off not as good fellowship but smug self-satisfaction. And some of the characters, especially Howlin’ Mad, are conceived in a way that is perpetually off-putting.

Carnahan, obviously, was not hired for this project because of a facility for psychological nuance but because, after adrenalized films like “Smokin’ Aces” and “Narc,” he is one of Hollywood’s go-to guys for brisk, peppy action, and he delivers. Up to a point.

For while the mayhem in “The A-Team” is effective in isolated chunks, it exists in a vacuum. Watching it feels like watching an extended trailer for the film rather than the film itself, an NFL highlights reel of cascading cars, exotic explosions and can-you-top-this craziness that wears you out with its unfocused energy.

It’s not only the off-putting characterization that is the culprit here, it’s also a “Mission Impossible”-style plot that has so many segments, twists and double and triple crosses that following it is more of a chore than an adventure.

The story begins, in a sequence intercut with the opening credits, “somewhere in Mexico,” where bad guys are doing their worst in the hot desert sun. Before the credits are over, the four A-Team members, linked by upper arm tattoos that reveal a passion for the Army Rangers, have met via a series of improbable coincidences and discovered the virtues of working together.

The film then jumps “eight years and 80 successful missions later,” with the A-Team seemingly secure in its reputation as “the best clandestine unit in the Army.” Its next assignment, set during the Iraq invasion, involves going into Baghdad and getting its hands on a billion dollars in counterfeit U.S. currency and the printing plates used to manufacture it.

As it turns out, the team has more than mere operation logistics to deal with. Intragovernmental rivalries become apparent, as a CIA operative named Lynch (Patrick Wilson) and Charisa Sosa ( Jessica Biel), a captain in the Defense Criminal Investigation Service (and an ex-flame of Face’s) face off. Then there’s Pike (screenwriter Bloom), a private military operative who heads a group the A-Team dismissively considers “assassins in polo shirts.”

This may sound like a lot, but it’s only a fraction of the plot, which goes on and on and on and even leaves room for half-baked homilies like “stuff like loyalty doesn’t fit in overhead bins.” These may not be words to live by, but they’re the best this undernourished A-Team can come up with.

kenneth.turan@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

3)

‘The A-Team’ Movie Reviews

By: Jane Murphy

With HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly.

What’s with all the swashbuckling this summer? ‘Robin Hood,’ ‘The Prince of Persia’? Bring on the state-of-the-art pyrotechnics. In short, we wanna see things blow up. Ah, but look who has just arrived, smelling of petrol and fine cigars. It’s ‘The A-Team,’ just in time.

‘The A-Team’ brings back the most beloved and explosive-friendly TV mercenaries of the 1980s. The deck is the same: an ace (“Hannibal”), two wild cards (“Murdock” and “B.A. Baracus”) and a really good-looking guy (“Face”). In NBC’s old caper, they were Vietnam vets; the 21st century crew has just served in Iraq. The men reunite to bust some baddies who’ve framed them for counterfeiting. If memory serves, the only way these guys will beat back a charge of fraud is with a howitzer.

The film stars Liam Neeson as Hannibal – not the Liam Neeson who occasionally stars in classics on Broadway, but the Liam Neeson of ‘Taken’, a seriously righteous brute (for the record, we love both). UFC titleholder Quinton “Rampage” Jackson assumes the gold chains of B.A. Baracus (the role that made Mr. T a star). Rounding out the team is Sharlto Copley of ‘District 9′ and ‘The Hangover’s’ Bradley Cooper. Just in case you thought half the population lacked proper representation, Jessica Biel appears as the ex-girlfriend of Face (Cooper). The film was co-written and directed by Joe Carnahan, a specialist in macho yarns (‘Smokin’ Aces’, ‘Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane’).

Did ‘The A-Team’ bring their “A game”? Let’s see what the critics have to say.

The Hollywood Reporter : “The film lurches from one action sequence to another, with little connection between the sequences. The characters move directly from small to big screen with new actors, of course, but little else changed including their famous catchphrases. So the screenwriting as such has been reduced to storyboards, stunt rigging and visual effects.”

Roger Ebert: “To give it credit, the movie knows it is childish. The PG-13 is appropriate. There’s little actual gore, no sex beyond a chaste kiss, no R-rated language, but ohmigod, there’s smoking! Alert to pre-teens: Try one of those fat cigars Hannibal smokes, and you won’t feel like eating dinner.”

4)

The overall Rating of The movie The A-Team is generally getting favorable reviews, so far as early reviews come in. It’s too early to tell, how this movie is going to do, but here is a small sample of what reviews say about the movie Plot of the movie: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Sharlto Copley star in a big screen remake of the 1980s action show. Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Sharlto Copley, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, and Gerald McRaney.

Here are some favorable reviews, as the ones you’ll find below:

If you are a stickler for movies that follow the laws of, say, physics, nature and common sense, The A-Team might not be for you. If, on the other hand, you get a kick out of exchanges like this – “Are they trying to shoot down that other drone?” “No. They’re trying to fly that tank” – then you’re in for a treat. -Arizona Republic

This revved-up movie version offers a perfect mix of non-stop thrills and clever dialogue, mixed with an engagingly light touch. Nobody is taking anything too seriously here, and that’s the fun of it.
 -Boxoffice Magazine

The Mixed and less favorable reviews in the media.

Carnahan stays true to the source material by delivering carnage without consequence (the machine gun-toting bad guys still can’t hit a barn from the inside), his convoluted plot and multiple villains may challenge the attention span of the target demographic. -Chicago Reader

The obstacle that the director Joe Carnahan and his colleagues failed to clear was finding the right self-mocking tone for a movie that was, by the looks of it, too expensive to risk real laughs. “-The New York Times

5)

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together
Forget the A-Team you know and love. This movie is nothing like it. And it’s all the better for it.

That’s not a slight against the original! I loved it as a kid, and still love it to this day. But the A-Team TV series was a thing built of the 1980s, for the 1980s. Trying to recapture that feel in 2010 would have left us with the cheesiest, most awkward action movie of the year.

Instead, then, this movie – which is part prequel, part reboot – takes only the basic premise of the original and its characters, and goes and builds something almost entirely new with it, which is good news both for fans of the original (as it leaves that series as a separate entity) and those who have never seen an episode of the A-Team but are there because Bradley Cooper is so dreamy.

Loved

It’s Not Your Father’s A-Team – I can’t stress this enough: more Hollywood adaptations need to be either 100% faithful to the source, or use it as such loose inspiration that it becomes its own movie, free of the clumsiness and burden of trying to keep both fans and newcomers happy. A-Team does the latter, with the pacing, characters and action so removed from the TV series that you’ll forget you’re even watching an A-Team movie until the credits roll and you hear the familiar whistle of the theme song. This disconnect worked for last year’s Star Trek movie, and it works here, too.

It Is Your Father’s 80s Action Movie, Though – The A-Team is, fittingly, an 80s action movie, in that it never takes itself too seriously. There’s no real twists or turns in the plot, no tricks, no grand statement the director is trying to make; just four guys with a ton of character (five, actually, when you include Patrick Wilson’s memorable performance as a CIA agent) who are as funny as they are good with a gun. And while this means it’s not going to be a movie that’ll make a splash at the Golden Globes, it also makes it a lot more fun than most things you’ll see this year.

Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper – I had reservations about casting Bradley Cooper as Face. My bad. Cooper is basically the star of the movie, and shines in the role, with a performance of such swagger and wry wit that you’ll quickly forget you had him typecast as “the boring, pretty one” from The Hangover.

Cheeky Fookin’ Prawn – The real star of the movie, though, is District 9’s Sharlto Copley, who plays Murdok. While struggling with his American accent for much of the film, he nevertheless gets ample opportunity to show he is a funny, funny man. It’s a shame his character doesn’t receive as much camera time as Neeson’s or Cooper’s, because he easily puts in the most memorable performance of the film.

Bums On Seats – The A-Team runs for around two hours, but that time simply flew by. Why? This movie’s pacing and timing is almost perfect. While the action bounces around from Mexico to Iraq to America to Germany, we’re never left in one spot too long to get bored, and we’re never whisked away too quickly to leave us in a blur, either. There are no “lulls”, no boring sections, and that’s a rare compliment these days.

HATED

I Pity This Fool – There’s an argument that what I’m about to say is partly down to the turn the film’s story takes around halfway through, but I was disappointed more wasn’t done with Quinton Jackson’s “BA Baracus”. BA was the masthead of the original series, and most people’s favourite character, but in this film he takes a backseat to Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper. Those moments he does get a chance to strut his stuff, Jackson comes off as a little “weak”, and you’re reminded he’s in the movie more for his physical appearance than his acting ability.

EXPLOSIONS – For 90% of the movie, the A-Team manages to restrain itself from indulging in the worst excesses of the CGI era. Then, in a five-minute period near the end of the movie, it undoes this with a ridiculous sequence that’s the films only jarring moment, the absurdity of the shoddy computer graphics in stark contrast to the solid physical action that constitutes the rest of the flick.

Spoilers – This one isn’t the movie’s fault, I know, but it’s still a complaint: the film’s best set pieces are in the trailer. Sure, you get to see more of them in the actual film, but it would have been nice to have the “fly a tank out of a burning plane” bit saved for the movie, since it’s the highlight in terms of action.

Don’t mind the number of “hateds” above. I had an absolute blast watching the A-Team. Sure, its simple. It’s shallow. It’s disposable. But it’s also funny, truly funny, and the cast are able to bring such charm and bravado to the movie that this will be one of the feel good hits of 2010. If gunplay, punching and snappy one-liners are what makes you feel good, that is.

6)

Movie Review: Action film “The A-Team” doesn’t quite impress in the theaters

by Jason Berlinberg

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Time to lock and load.

As the relay of summer action movies continues, so opened last the “The A-Team,” a flashy remake of the ‘80s TV series of the same name. The film depicts the high-profile adventures of four former Army Rangers, played by Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Sharlto Copley.

Starting in Iraq, these soldiers are given a hush-hush assignment to track down some stolen United States’ currency printing plates. It turns out this assignment is a set up, and the four main characters are court-martialed and falsly imprisoned.

After escaping, the protagonists devise countless elaborate plans to get even with the person who set them up.

The cast does well to keep the movie going, especially at times when the plot slows down to a snails pace, and Neeson as John “Hannibal” Smith and Cooper as Templeton “Faceman” Peck especially stand out.

Neeson commands every scene that he’s in, and seeing him act alongside “Rampage” Jackson certainly felt out of place. Overall the cast got plenty of laughs and were a pleasing group, although for some reason Cooper had a tendency to lose his shirt and Copely’s off the wall character got annoying by the end.

As for what most viewers are going to see this film for, the big explosions and action sequences, they can be labeled as over the top and impossible. Look for the flying tank attached to a parachute that’s shooting down airplanes.

This is the movie’s bread and butter, and there is absolutely no shortage of it. Toward the end, some of these sequences feel stale and cheezy, but for the most part these scenes are the strengths of the movie.

Unfortunately the plot fails to capitalize on any excitement that the action sequences produce. Every serious scene in the movie acts like a road block to its own ultimate success. This movie is not supposed to be realistic. It’s made to be showy, loud and in your face. It’s a shame that the film isn’t amped up to the max the entire time, and the movie suffers for it.

The catch phrase repeated by the titular characters after the completion of a mission, “I love it when a plan comes together,” ironically does not accurately describe the overall success of the film itself.

“The A-Team” does not come together like one of Hannibal’s planned missions; the story takes itself too seriously, the script is all over the place, the ending is extremely unintelligent and provides absolutely no closure and the acting is hit or miss.

Although not a perfectly executed plan, “The A-Team” is a fun summer flick with action sequences that most audiences will appreciate enough to see.

Movie reviewer Jason Berlinberg can be reached at ente...@collegian.com

7)

‘The A-Team’ movie review: Revisiting TV’s ‘A-Team’ without a plan

Published: Friday, June 11, 2010, 12:34 AM     Updated: Thursday, June 10, 2010, 2:42 PM

Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger

Quick, what do you remember about “The A-Team”?

It’s not a rhetorical question. Really, quick, please, what do you remember about the 1980s TV series? Because all I can come up with is a sort of “Dirty Dozen” gimmick, George Peppard with a cigar, loud explosions and Mr. T.

But that’s okay. The folks behind this big-budget, big-screen remake didn’t remember much more than that, either.

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The A-Team

(PG-13) Fox (117 min.)

Directed by Joe Carnahan. With Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Now playing in New Jersey.

Stephen Whitty’s rating: Two stars

Ratings note: The film contains violence and strong language.

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So we’ve got the silvery-haired, stogie-loving ringleader again — this time played by the way-too-busy Liam Neeson. And Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as a stand-in for the original Mohawked menace. And, yeah, some outside-the-law good guys, and lots of stuff blowing up.

And I pity the fool looking for anything more.

Unfortunately, you do sort of need something more here. And the picture doesn’t deliver it.

Director Joe Carnahan — whose nothing-succeeds-like-excess filmography includes the awful “Smokin’ Aces” — cuts his action sequences together so fast and furiously you can’t see what’s actually happening. Nor can you hear anyone’s explanations, as his sole direction to the actors seems to have been “Louder! And faster! And all at once!”

But if you think that’s tiresome, wait for the interludes when Carnahan tries to convince us — or at least himself — that this is actually a real movie with real characters. Jessica Biel and Bradley Cooper discuss their commitment issues. Neeson and Jackson debate — no, I’m not kidding — Gandhi’s theories on nonviolence.

And you thought this was about outside-the-law good guys, and lots of stuff blowing up?

Well it is, and the film regularly gets back to all that. But its own confusion about what it really is — an honestly mindless guilty pleasure or an actually smart caper movie — keeps it from succeeding at either. Besides, it’s neither honest about its mindlessness, nor smart about its capers.

The big cast’s prettier members includes Cooper, who strides through the movie grinning as if he’s just realized he’s a movie star, and Biel, who shows her regular-Army determination by occasionally remembering to button up her blouse.

Both actors deserve better. The character of the A-Team’s crazy cowboy pilot, meanwhile, deserved to be played by Owen Wilson, and not Sharlto Copley, the South African star of “District 9,” who’s unrecognizable here. And also, mostly, insufferable.

But then, too much of this is.

“I believe, no matter how random things may appear, there’s still a plan,” Neeson declares at one point. He’s right about the randomness, so here’s your plan: Rent “The Losers” if you want a cheesy action movie. Wait for “The Expendables” if you want a gritty, pumped-up one.

And mark this “A-Team” strictly C-grade.

Doug Curran/20th Century FoxFace (Bradley Cooper), B.A. (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson), Murdock (Sharlto Copley), Hannibal (Liam Neeson) and race into action in Joe Carnahan’s big-budget remake of the 1980s TV series “The A-Team.”

8

Yojimbo Five | June 14, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Those fans of the television show The A-Team who’ve worried about the big-screen adaptation need not worry. The new film embraces the peculiarities of the characters and the antic nature that made the small-screen version so popular, while updating and expanding the scope, escaping the series’ formulaic nature.

Instead of Vietnam-era veterans, the “A’s”–Col. “Hannibal” Smith (Liam Neeson), Lt. “Faceman” Peck (Bradley Cooper), B.A. Baracus (Quinton Jackson) and H.M. Murdock (Sharlto Copley)–are Persian Gulf vets, who’ve spent eight years in the Iraq War as soldiers for hire, impressing the military and chapping the hide of the privatized black-ops forces contracted to do the dirty work in the dirtiest way possible.

In the time it takes to pity a fool, the four are set up for the murder of their commander (Gerald McRaney) and the botching of a mission to recover photographic plates that the loyalists of Saddam could use to print American greenbacks and de-stabilize the economy (as if that was unusual). They’re sent to prison in disgrace, but because those plates haven’t been recovered, Smith is soon visited by CIA operative Lynch (Patrick Wilson, having a lot of fun with the role), who arranges for the team to be sprung in the hopes of completing the mission and clearing their names. Complicating matters is an old flame of Peck’s (Jessica Biel), carrying out her own investigation while simultaneously pursuing the fugitives to bring them to justice.

Luckily, everyone’s headed in the same direction.

Directed by Joe Carnahan, The A-Team is something of a mess, with complicated action sequences that seem to be concocted to create as much destruction as possible, but shot in such a way as to have the impacts muted. But, then the plot doesn’t really matter all that much–every audience member at the theater I went to knew what was going to happen, and the film is crafted with inserted flashbacks to make sure even the drowsy or the kids making out on the back row don’t miss a beat.

The plot didn’t matter much on the TV show, either. What made The A-Team a hit was the quirky characters and their Four Stooges manner. And that is where The A-Team movie shines. The characters bicker and bellow, cackle and cajole, with overlapping dialogue coming fast and furiously. They’re not doing Shakespeare here, and the speed at which the actors interact suspends any in-the-moment analysis. Neeson’s persona has needed some lightening up the past couple years, and his “Hannibal” is nicely cocksure and swaggering; Cooper has a perpetual leering smile on his face, while playing insufferable with assurance. The long shadows of Mr. T and Dwight Schulz would be tough to overcome in any instance; Jackson’s Baracus is most effective at top volume, but Copley’s cracked Murdock, his accent inconsistent from line to line, is a hilariously manic loose cannon. The South African actor (who played the hapless government bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe from District 9) shows, once again, that he is an actor to watch over the next few years.

One might wonder how Biel would fare in all this testosterone-pumped mayhem, but she makes the most of the best line in the entire movie. That occurs during a manic sequence involving the “A’s” free-falling in a tank, a sequence hilariously over-the-top in both situation and humor.

As long as The A-Team maintains that delirious giddiness, it provides all the jostling fun of an amusement park’s E-ticket. And since no one is going into this movie expecting anything else–at least, no one should be–it works.

9

The A-Team Movie Review

Action movies have always occupied their own pseudo fantasy world in which men are made of iron and everything explodes if shot more than three times. While this isn’t a new phenomenon (adeptly lampooned in 1993 by Last Action Hero) lately the stakes have been raised. So many action flicks these days are engaged in a sort of epic ‘one-ups man ship,’ constantly reaching for new ridiculous testosterone-fueled heights. Some films (Shoot ‘Em Up) turn out better than others (The Losers). The A-Team is one of these movies that are constantly engaged in fisticuffs with the limits of plausible reality.

Reviving beloved characters from the classic television series, The A-Team stars Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) as Face, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (UFC) as B.A., Sharlto Copley (District 9) as Murdoch, and the unparalleled Liam Neeson as Hannibal. Supporting the four stars are Jessica Biel (7^th Heaven) as Face’s old flame, and a delightfully glib Patrick Wilson (The Watchmen) as CIA agent Lynch.

Hannibal, Face, B.A., and Murdoch were an unstoppable team of Army Rangers until one last mission in Iraq turned sour and the team was framed. Six months, one military tribunal, and four prison breaks later, the team are fugitives from the law trying to clear their names. With Hannibal’s absurd plans, Face’s charm, Murdoch’s piloting skills, and B.A.’s knuckle tattoos (“PITY” and “FOOL”) there’s nobody even within the movie that thinks they could possibly fail.

Each of the actors does a tremendous job bringing levity and personality to their character and Murdoch’s banter, in particular, is priceless. The acting is good; the writing is good and even makes the best of a tired plot structure. The action is ridiculous. Perhaps overly so at times, but there’s no point in the movie where it becomes tedious, and that’s half the battle. Almost every aspect of The A-Team is good, but for some reason it’s just not great. Honestly though, for a movie that the world expected to be awful (directed by Joe Carnahan of Smokin’ Aces infamy), I’m pretty happy with a good, entertaining, slightly ridiculous action flick.

Posted by: DrHideous

10

This Ain’t Your Father’s ‘A-Team’

by Danny Gallagher, posted Jun 16th 2010 11:00PM

Going to see the new ‘A-Team’ movie wasn’t a new movie-going experience. In fact, I’ve experienced it approximately 167 times before in my lifetime. It was just another big budget movie remake of a classic campy TV show that seemed to only aim for mediocrity by grave-robbing the memories of my youth spent unsupervised in front of the television.

I didn’t have cable growing up, so the only time I could enjoy such classic kiddie staples of the 1980s such as ‘Double Dare’ or ‘You Can’t Do That on Television’ were at a friend’s house, my babysitter’s place or my grandparents’ living room. (That’s right, my grandparents had cable before my parents did. I’m surprised I didn’t have to enjoy the adventures of the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ on an Westinghouse tube radio.)

So I spent a lot of my TV time watching shows like ‘The A-Team’ in reruns. I really didn’t like it. It was juvenile, even by my low standards. So my expectations for the movie version were already about as low as the direct-to-DVD sequel of ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ movie that wasn’t good enough to even attract a script skim from Johnny Knoxville. However, the only thing the TV show and director Joe Carnahan’s movie have in common are the characters and that made it a whole lot better.

This time around, the characters seem to have more dimensions than their TV show counterparts. Sure that’s like comparing Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venues” to Jethro’s “Velvet Elvis” seat covers, but they have more of a purpose in the context of the movie other than just their signature character traits. Some work and some don’t. Hannibal, played with a steady and nicely paced Liam Neeson, is the wise old leader with plans more complex than NASA’s drawing board but he also has a nice sense of sincerity and loyalty that’s way more believable than the original show would allow the late George Peppard to be. His character is also the most toned down and considering Mr. T’s portrayal of the hothead B.A., that’s saying a hell of a lot.

Bradley Cooper also does a nice job as Face, the pretty boy soldier boy of the group who uses his oozing charm and ridiculous handsomeness to fulfill his part of the plan. The plot of the movie is more ingrained in Face and Hannibal’s characters compared to the other two, so most of the film rests on their shoulders. For the most part, they do a nice job and don’t let the retro kitchiness of the characters overtake the few dramatic moments the film offers.

B.A. and Murdock tend to veer towards the more ridiculous side. This time, UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson dons the mohawk and he tries his best to avoid mimicking that “jibber jabber” ridiculing, fool hating attitude that made B.A. so famous on television, but that just sucks all of the color out of the character. The film also tries to compensate for his lack of melodramatics and acting prowess with a plot twist that tries to explain why he’s so toned down, but it so silly and completely opposite of what we’ve known about him that it feels like they are doing a parody of the original character. It’s like watching Mr. T playing B.A. on thorazine.

The hands down winner in this cast is ‘District 9’s’ Sharlto Copley, who plays the insanely suicidal pilot, Murdock. It’s an interesting choice for the character because if you based your casting choices entirely on the TV show, just about any wise-cracking funny man in Hollywood could play the character by putting their own spin on it. He’s clinically insane and clearly an undiagnosed schizophrenic with a death wish who has an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture references to make inappropriate quips in harrowing situations. In other words, he’s Seth MacFarlane with a pilot’s license. Copley doesn’t just clown around on camera. He mixes some subtle nuances and a great deal of fun to the character. He does such a great job with the guy that he completely ignores the original TV show and makes it his own, the only way to make it work in any context in my opinion.

In terms of quality, it’s loads better than the original TV show. Carnahan knows the source material is cheesy and campy, so he’s given a lot of breathing room for error. The plots and schemes range from the ridiculous to the unbelievably absurd so much so that one wonders if the laws of aerodynamics and motion even exist in this alternate movie universe. The dialogue can get corny and catchphrases are squeezed into exchanges that feel like sausage being forced into a kids’ party balloon, but it knows when to rely on the TV show’s source material and when to back off and rely on its own wits. It’s a plan that comes together all on its own.

11

“‘The A-Team’: Did the PG-13 rating ruin yet another action movie?” Darren Franich

Last weekend,  The Kung Fu Karate Kid dominated the box office, while The A-Team pulled in an okay-but-not-sequel-worthy $26 million. I saw A-Team, and kinda enjoyed it (check out Owen Gleiberman’s spot-on review). But I thought there was one glaring problem with the movie: the PG-13 rating. What could have been an enjoyably coarse testosterone-fest felt pruned and bland. The characters were “badass,” but their badassery was utterly inoffensive. If you ask me, the movie’s mediocre box office is just further proof that Hollywood’s craven attempt to make teen-friendly films has practically destroyed a sainted genre: the contemporary action movie.

I understand why Hollywood aims for PG-13 with these big blockbusters. Giving a movie an R rating means that teenagers with lame parents don’t get to see your movie. (Or, more likely, it means that teenagers buy Karate Kid tickets and then sneak into your movie.) And don’t get me wrong. The PG-13 rating makes sense for superhero movies (which are mostly just stealth dramedies hiding underneath a few explosions) and fantasy films (which are mostly set in beautiful worlds without any naughty language.)

But A-Team is a movie about four dudes with guns who drive fast cars and blow things up real good. It’s utterly nonsensical that these guys use swear words about as often as prep-school preschoolers. (Twice, the movie did the trick where a character screams “Motherf-” and then gets cut off by an explosion. Now they’re just teasing us!) Plus, all PG-13 gunfights are essentially bloodless, so every action sequence looks about as threatening as a paintball match. Finally, PG-13 means no sex, which means our protagonists just seem like tough-talking frat boys instead of actual ladies’ men.

What’s missing is the charming, carefree sense of coarse rulebreaking that used to be the action genre’s main appeal. Just consider Tango & Cash, the late ’80s buddy-copper starring Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone, which bears a vague plot resemblance to The A-Team. Now, Tango & Cash is not a good movie. But it is a fun movie, and that’s because every scene in the movie basically goes like this:

Cash: “Hey, f—you, Tango!”
Tango: “Go f— yourself, Cash!”
[Pause for gunfight]
Tango: “Hey Cash, good shooting! Now get f—ed!”
Cash: “Tango, you’re a m—–f—ing f—d—!”
[Pause for seductive Teri Hatcher dance sequence]

I’m hopeful that Stallone’s upcoming action-fest The Expendables reminds us what a great R-rated action flick looks like (although right now, the film still isn’t rated: fingers crossed!). [UPDATE: According to Lionsgate, The Expendables is indeed rated R. Lovers of casual F-bombs, rejoice!] What do you think, PopWatchers? Am I silly to think that a few extra swears can make a movie more watchable?

Liam Neeson admires the courage of his A-Team character
By
DARA KELLY

Published Tuesday, June 8, 2010, 11:57 AM

Updated Tuesday, June 8, 2010, 12:04 PM

It’s been a trying time for Irish actor Liam Neeson, but anyone can see that he’s standing strong. Sometimes, though, he wishes he could share the courage under pressure of some of the characters he plays on the big screen.

In the summer action blockbuster The A-Team, which opens this week, Neeson will play Hannibal Smith, the leader of a team of skilled former Army Rangers.

Neeson says he admires the fearlessness he gets to play on screen. ‘Well, these guys know no fear and that’s really interesting. I mean, I’m scared when I wake up in the morning, just what the day is going to entail. We’ll not get into that. It’s interesting the things these guys do. It’s like they are not scared and that’s an amazing quality I think. I’d love to have that quality in real life.’

The fact that Neeson can keep working so consistently after the sudden passing of his wife, Natasha Richardson, is truly admirable. Here’s hoping that he finds consolation in his work in the months ahead.

Creatively Neeson’s career is on a role, with several high profile films in the pipeline. ‘I did this film, ‘Taken,’ that’s given me a whole new lease on life at the age of 58,’ Neeson told the press this week. ‘So it was great to flex those different muscles if you know what I mean.’

Melbourne, June 8 – Hollywood actor Mr. T has lashed out at movie A-Team, accusing it of having too much sex and violence.

Mr. T played BA Baracus in the original hit TV show in the 1980s. He refused to appear in a cameo role in the new movie.

The new film stars Liam Neeson, Jessica Biel and Bradley Cooper, reports The Daily Telegraph.

The 58-year-old actor was shocked with the graphic violence and obscenity in a preview of the A-Team movie.

“People die in the film and there’s plenty of sex but when we did it, no one got hurt and it was all played for fun and family entertainment,” Mr T said.

“These seem to be elements nobody is interested in anymore. It was too graphic for me. I’ve no doubt it will do big business at the box office but it’s nothing like the show we turned out every week,” he added. (ANI)

People Die…?  Huh?  You mean Morrison?  Like, isn’t he supposed to die?  He better, or the A-team will never become fugitives, right?

Both Mr. T and Dirk Benedict have rejected this film based on their experience in their character form.  The characters they embellished are going to be nothing like the new team.  But then, this is for a new generation.

Since Benedict is actually listed with a character name in the credits, and Schultz isn’t, are we going to hear from him at all?  I can’t believe Schultz would get such a slap in the face with “German Doctor” as the only credit listing.  He’s the one who should protest!