Review | The A-Team
It doesn’t matter that the question has come up so many times in the last year that I’ve lost count, it’s still the first thing that emerges when things like this happen. The answer is self-evident, I’m sure. The motive couldn’t be clearer. Heck, sometimes you even get a little a surprise. But regardless, it always juts right out to the forefront of the mind: “Who the hell thought this was a good idea?”
For those that don’t know, the premise for The A-Team (both past and present incarnations) is the framing of a four-man squad of veterans for a crime that puts them on the run from the military industrial complex they once served. Swap Vietnam with Iraq and trade helping people for singe-minded pursuit of clearing their name, and you’ve gone from ’83 to 2010 in a flash.
Though it may be tantamount to blasphemy for the 80’s-baby nostalgia set, I have to admit I never really cared for The A-Team television show. If you re-watched it today I get the feeling you might not either. Still, with its broad premise and beloved characters there’s no reason it couldn’t have been perfectly serviceable fodder for a modern re-launch. Problem is, if we did action-sitcoms bad back then we do action blockbusters even worse now.
The characters remain the same rough silhouettes, though some benefit more than others from the actors enlisted for reinterpretation. Liam Neeson seems unable to turn of badass mode off in these later years, bringing a suitably rugged authority to group leader Hannibal.
Bradley Cooper on the other hand plays loveable rouge ‘Faceman’ with obnoxiousness rivalled only by his previous annoyance, The Hangover. Replacing Mr T as B.A. Baracus is frankly an impossible job, but the studio seems to have peered down the requirements to being simply big and black, so fighter Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson fits the bill easily.
The film is everything we expect from a modern popcorn flick and nothing more – silly, loud, fast and only occasionally insulting. The A-Team’s single saving grace is that it seems very aware of these prerequisites and doesn’t take its self too seriously as a result.
