Having languished in Development Hell for over a decade, arguably the most wanted 80’s revamp hits the big screen in the middle of the Summer Blockbuster season. Liam Neeson, Sharlto Copley (District 9), Quinton Jackson (MMA fighter) and Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) take the reins previously held by George Peppard, Dwight Schultz, Mr T and Dirk Benedict. They all certainly look the part, as you can see from the poster:
They’ve not reinvented the wheel here; at its’ heart The A-Team is a very daft, loud, brash bit of nonsense for two hours. While it’s true that the original show was pretty basic and unfeasible daft, I feel that just aping that feeling is a bit of a waste of time. In this day and age viewers have come to expect more from even their most basic action flicks and, unfortunately, this is where I felt the film was a let-down.
The TV show always started with a voiceover before the credits and iconic theme tune, explaining that the team had been convicted of a crime they didn’t commit. In this film, we see these events in detail and follow the team as they try to clear their names. The plot is accurate to the spirit of its’ TV predecessor in that it’s wafer-thin and doesn’t stand up to close examination. Framed by the obvious, moustache-twirling bad guys, Hannibal and co stage a pretty impressive series of escapes and try to unravel the conspiracy. Quite why it takes them so long, when the audience are likely to be facepalming at their stupidity, escapes me.
Cooper and Copley are the highlights of the film, ace-ing the roles of Faceman and Murdock. Cooper’s Faceman is a smart-ass fixer and ladies man. He’d have been the guy dealing in black market chocolate and nylons for your grandma in WW2. He’s Hannibal’s second in command but he’s very much his own man, not just a yes-man. Sharlto Copley continues to impress in only his second starring role. His performance in District 9 was great and there’s more evidence here that he’s able to provide a wide variety of styles and personas on screen. Murdock’s mania is funny and unpredictable but never overdone. In fact I was never quite sure whether or not he actually was mad, or just acting like it for one reason or another. Damn good pilot too.
The other half of the team are less impressive. Jackson is stretched about as much here as Mr T was in the original. He stands around, looking mean and occasionally punching/kicking someone very hard. Liam Neeson seems to be part Qui-Gon Jinn, part Hannibal Smith. He certainly LOOKS like Hannibal, but the character has some very Jedi homily moments which don’t seem to fit with the breakneck action sequences. Neeson actually looks bored. When delivering Hannibal’s catch phrase “I love it when a plan comes together” I felt like he was going through his to-do list in his head, the delivery is that flat and lifeless.
In terms of pure action at least, the film does dazzle. The trailer has already spoiled the parachuting tank sequence, but it’s still one of the highlights. The jailbreaks and the initial heist are very clever. Shades of Ocean’s 11/12/13 in the imaginative methods used. the CGI effects are nice enough but suffer form the common problem nowadays of looking TOO good, and as a result, less believable, paradoxically. this is especially true during a sequence at a dockyard, late in the film. Crazy to find fault with effects being too perfect, but that perfection takes away the suspension of disbelief I had. The Spider-Man films are another good example of this.
Clocking in at roughly 2 hours, The A-Team could have done with some tighter editing to keep it shorter. Had it been 90-100 minutes, I think the film’s shortcomings might not have been exposed so glaringly.
Yes, the van is in the film. Yes, the old school theme is heard several times and yes, it is still cool. There are blink and you’ll miss them cameos form two of the original actors but my favourite in-joke is subtle enough that many will miss it, but those who clock it will smile: While in the hospital, Murdock watches a film with the other patients. The actors names that show on the screen during the film’s intro sequence are all characters from different shows played by the actors from the original TV series. Reginald Barclay represent!
It’s a no-brainer film, silly, funny in parts but unnecessarily long. See it if you still have fond memories of the original but bear in mind that The Losers did the same thing much, much better earlier this summer.
