The A-Team

The A-Team (2010)

48% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 147 reviews)

Runtime: 117 minutes

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, Quinton Jackson, Jessica Biel

From: 20th Century Fox

As I’ve mentioned before, the movies that were released this year that I’ve been looking forward to, I’ve been let down by (I’m looking at your general direction, Kick-Ass and especially Iron Man 2). I was hoping I’d enjoy this. I figured what type of movie it was going to be, based off of the TV show, but I was still hoping for at least a good time.

I’ll confess that I have faint memories of watching the TV show when I was real little. A few years ago I rented some episodes of the show from a local video store, and I discovered that I found the program to be rather stupid and not entertaining. I know that’s blasphemy to some, but it’s true. I better never try to watch Knight Rider, as I know I enjoyed watching it when I was a kid.

I saw this at the Plaza Cinema Café in downtown Orlando. I’ve been there twice before last summer, to see the original Italian Job and then District 9 (also starring Copley, interestingly enough). As people in the know had predicted even before it opened, there would be problems with the inept corrupt people who built and ran the PCC, and after a few months, that’s exactly what happened. They didn’t pay the bills and another company took it over, and now the joint is better overall. It’s not incompetent like it used to be… you can believe that the start times you read online are the actual start times for the films, it has the standard multiplex faire (although I wish they’d show more indy/foreign/older/off the beaten path movies), and it’s just a better experience there.

As for the movie… it’s rather similar to the TV show, except that it’s dopey BUT GOOD. You get to see four Army Rangers in a special A-Team faction, led by Hannibal Smith (Neeson), and including Face (Cooper), the loony Murdock (Copley), and the famed Bosco (B.A.) Baracus (acting newcomer/MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who doesn’t do too badly). You see them get framed for a crime they did not commit, and they try to right all the wrongs.

Sure, it’s a goofy movie, but you probably already figured it out if you saw the trailers and noticed Cooper firing a machinegun from a tank at drones… but the plane happens to be falling out from the sky… if you can believe that could happen, then you should enjoy this. If you can believe Biel playing a Captain of the investigative arm of the Department of Defense, then you should enjoy this. Need I go on?

The only real complaint is that there’s too much of that shaky-cam/quick editing crap that I’ve railed against on here more than once before. Yet, maybe because I’ve been waiting for months to enjoy a movie I had some sort of expectations for, maybe that’s why I’m giving it a pass when I may otherwise be more irked by it. If you can excuse that, this very funny movie that’s packed with quality action should entertain you like it entertained the packed crowd I saw it with on Saturday night. There are surprises and double-crosses along the way (I won’t reveal anything, except that I was surprised to see Major Dad himself, Gerald McRaney, play, surprise, a General) and it’s the type of movie you’d expect it to be (a big dumb action movie with plenty of laughs) but unlike many of them (IMO) this one’s actually entertaining to watch and doesn’t make you angry with how dumb and ridiculous it is. You’ll enjoy all the characters and how they interact with each other rather than be turned off by any of them, for example. Biel acts about as well as you’d expect her to (i.e., she’s a pretty face and not much else) but it doesn’t do anything to make you not have a good time with this.

So, if it’s the type of movie you think you’d like, I highly recommend you go see it and show it some love, as it’s not doing as well at the box office as many people had predicted, so it needs some extra cash thrown its way.

I’ll be back Friday night, reviewing a movie that is rather far away from what this film is.