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This plan didn’t quite come together, fool.
Ok, a movie of The A-Team. We all know what to expect, really. Usual action film with a massive budget so, worst comes to worst, there’ll be a few impressive action sequences to awe me for a few minutes. Anyway quiet down, it’s on.
The A-Team kicks off with the assembling and escape of the team before switching to their modern day Iraq war betrayal and jail escapes, after which they go for revenge against those who have done them wrong, yeah, grr.
As expected above the action sequences are great. Nice explosions, cars driving around fast and that and it’s unashamedly, consistently cool. The acting is pretty brilliant, particularly Sharlto Copley who plays the fantastically mad Murdock – I can definitely see his career getting a deserved boost from The A-Team. Liam Neeson as Hannibal is his usual mix of suave charm and coolness, while the other two members of the team (Bradley Cooper as Templeton “Face” Peck and Quinton Jackson as B.A. Baracus) do give their characters a fresh, modern twist. However, Jessica Biel, who plays Face’s love interest Charissa, is pretty redundant from start to finish.
This film was good, but I couldn’t help but feel it could have been better. On the one hand, it tries to be an original movie, substantially different from the old A-Team stories. On the other hand, however, it still throws in the odd cliché from the original series, such as the constant references to BA being unable to fly, while his frequent use of the word “fool” does tire a little towards the end. I’d have liked to have seen them drop all that and go for an entirely new A-Team - the cynic in me suspects Hollywood editing the script to keep old A-Team fans happy.
The ending leaves it open enough that, if the money machine keeps ringing, there’ll be a sequel, but I can’t imagine where it will go except be a near carbon copy of this movie. In conclusion, worth a watch, you’ll be entertained for a couple of hours, but this new take on The A-Team could have been better.
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