Director: Joe Carnahan
Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley & Quinton Jackson
The big budget remake of the 80s TV series often looks the part, with some good action and a likeable cast but does lack the heart of the series on which it is based and goes too OTT with the set pieces by the film’s finale.
With many TV series from the 80s and 90s seeing big screen adaptations over the past decade, few seemed as suitable for a big budget remake than The A-Team, an 80s TV series known for its action. The A-Team series though owed much of its popularity to its cast making any remake’s success reliant upon its casting of those roles too. Spending more than a decade going through development with John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood) signed on to direct with Ice Cube to play B.A. Baracus until recently, Joe Carnahan (Narc) stepped in to bring the series to the big screen at last with help from original series producer Stephen J. Cannell and some revised casting decisions. While the casting of the four lead characters turns out to be quite enjoyable for the most part, they and the film as a whole still lack the charm of the original series.
On a mission in Mexico to rescue partner Templeton ‘Face’ Peck (Cooper) and depose a renegade General, ranger John ‘Hannibal’ Smith (Neeson) enlists the aid of two fellow rangers, Roscoe ‘B.A.’ Baracus (Jackson) and the eccentric H.M. ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock (Copley), Hannibal completes his mission and takes his team on to 80 more successful missions over the next 8 years. Now in the final days of the U.S.’s military involvement in Iraq, Hannibal is contacted by a C.I.A. operative named Lynch (Patrick Wilson) to take on one more black ops mission to recover stolen treasury plates that could be used by criminals to print their own U.S. currency. Completing the mission successfully, Hannibal’s ‘A-Team’ find themselves framed for theft and murder when the only General who could verify their mission as authentic is killed and the plates stolen by a rival named Pike (Brian Bloom). Sentenced to 10 years in prison, the team are given a chance to escape and clear their name by Lynch whose own motives are unknown whilst the team are also pursued by Captain Sosa (Jessica Biel), a former flame of Face’s now tasked with the mission of apprehending the A-Team.
Facing competition from comic book adaptation The Losers and Stallone film The Expendables, both ‘soldiers of fortune’ films themselves, The A-Team has help from the familiarity of the characters and concepts of the TV series it is adapting to draw in audiences which also means the film has a lot to live up to, to both reintroduce The A-Team for new audiences whilst satisfying fans of the 80s TV series. Casting of the four, now cult classic, lead characters from that series is important to the film’s success but so is also capturing the spirit of the TV series and The A-Team film suffers mixed results on both. Part of the charm of the TV series was it seeing the team able to escape almost any calamity through the team’s resourcefulness, their ability to take whatever materials they have at hand to produce a plan to win and the tools to ensure it. Taking this idea and pushing it to levels unseen in the TV series thanks to the budget of an action movie, The A-Team film sees some fun action sequences throughout its first half including the opening Mexico scene which brings the team together and includes a memorable helicopter chase and a mid film sequence where the team “fly a tank”. Both sequences are fun, big and memorable in keeping with the tone of the TV series however the film’s climax falls apart with a plan begins too OTT to begin with but suffers from poor CGI and a mad dash to resolve the film’s plot that undermines some of the fun that came before.
With a cast as fondly remembered as that of the original TV series cast, the cast of the film are largely enjoyable even though they don’t quite live up to the performances of their predecessors. Liam Neeson is enjoyable as Hannibal Smith, bringing some of the same confidence and swagger to the role that George Peppard brought though not quite the same level of warmth or charm but is enjoyable nonetheless. Bradley Cooper certainly brings charm to his performance as Face and is likeable but his youth makes his charm and cockiness feel less justified than that of Dirk Benedict’s performance. Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson brings a similar level of physicality as Mr. T did to B.A. Baracus but his performance is the weakest of the cast with Jackson’s performance feeling too soft, less angry than would be expected for the role. The best performance of the new cast is Sharlto Copley’s, following on the success of his role in District 9, he brings an enjoyable level of manic energy to the role of Murdock that, while more frenzied than the performance of Dwight Schultz in the 80s, is still fun and Copley steals most scenes. Amongst the supporting cast, Biel and Bloom are merely satisfactory in the roles of A-Team hunter/Face love interest and villainous henchman respectively though Patrick Wilson is quite enjoyable as C.I.A. agent Lynch.
The A-Team movie could never live up to the memories and expectations of audiences who grew up with the original 1980s TV series but the cast are mostly fun, Copley as Murdock especially, and the first half of the film features some enjoyable action sequences. The second half however disappoints with a set piece that goes overboard, featuring some awful CGI. Decent overall but nothing compared to the TV series.
Rating: 3/5
