The A-Team Movie Review


We live in the age of remakes, when Hollywood has exhausted their originality and started looking to the past for a quick buck at the expense of the nostalgic. The latest entry (or is it victim?) to this age is The A-Team, a remake of the gun-toting, van-riding, 80’s action TV show that had Mr. T in it. After seeing what Hollywood film execs are capable of doing when they put their asinine minds to it in GI: Joe: The Rise of Cobra and (arguably) Transformers, I was expecting them to fight a giant mechanical spider wearing matching black spandex uniforms.

Then the movie comes out. I watch it, hoping for the best.

I’m in remake heaven.

The A-Team schools every remake ever done so far by being a remake done right, updating the setting, the circumstances, but keeping what made it so much fun way back then. The changes are cosmetic at this point. Hannibal is still chomping cigars. Face is still the charismatic sonovagun that can get his team anything within twenty minutes. B.A. still pities fools. And Murdock is still batshit insane...and still the best pilot the military has ever seen. Together they form the A-Team, a special ops team that specialize in the ridiculous and the impossible. Unfortunately, they were sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit. So what do they do? They bust out to clear their names, of course! And the fun just amps up from there.

Liam Neeson is obviously warming up to his new action hero image playing Col. “Hannibal” Smith, an Army ranger with a predilection for plans coming together. Combined with Bradley Cooper’s spot-on take as Face, Quintin “Rampage” Jackson as B.A., and Sharlto Copley’s hilarious turn as Murdock, it makes for a seamless and natural team dynamic that’s a hoot to watch. The action is crazy intense, and when you get to the part where the A-Team tries to fly a freakin’ tank and smiling while they do it, you know that they know how impossible, how ridiculous the entire scene is, but they’ll pull it off anyway. Because that’s how the A-Team rolls, fool.

Heck, I could even forgive Jessica Biel being more wooden than usual. Not even the foreigner sitting next to me in the theater who marinated himself in pungent cologne, making breathing a concentrated effort can detract from the fun I had with this movie.

Bottom line: The A-Team is a 2-hour thrill ride that has more tongue-in-cheek violence and fun than the Philippines has national debt. People who are familiar with the A-Team from the 80’s TV show will have absolutely plenty to love about this movie. It’s the A-Team come to life on the big screen! And those who are just in it for the guns and the explosions will be doing kegger handstands of distilled, balls-to-the-wall action and Bradley Cooper’s chiseled abs. If you want the most bang for your buck, The A-Team is it. Highly recommended!

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