The A-Team

Now its time for the second attempt at the amusing band of mercenaries summer flick. The A-Team was the most known property of the three, which made it the easiest failure. Thankfully it didn’t fail but when you are shooting for fun summer movie it’s not like the target is that small.

It would be completely impossible to hate this movie simply because of Sharlto Copley. All four of the original A-Team members were memorable, but come on, Murdock! Somehow Sharlto was able to make you forget what was there 25 years ago and steal every single second of screen time. He was great to the point where I would prefer they just spin-off the sequel to just be about him. There are too many scenes to highlight but I will have them all memorized when it shows up on cable. Bradley Cooper just turned up his normal charm and called himself Face, but who doesn’t get a kick out of Cooper acting like a borderline douche. His scenes in the prison were fantastic. I don’t think I would have ever thrown out the name Liam Neeson for Hannibal. He tried but his performance was fun because it was Liam not because he was recognizable as the original Hannibal. He chewed on the cigar and said the lines and that was enough to get the point across. That leaves Rampage to take on the Mr. T role and there ya go. He was fine but Mr. T is Mr. T so you can’t really duplicate the man. In the end, I have no issues with their casting choices or the performances they delivered. They were also kind enough to throw in Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, and Major Dad into the mix. Good stuff.

The action was very similar to Joe Carnahan’s last movie, Smokin’ Aces. Everything is completely over-the-top from handcuffing 2 dogs to each other to the final scene where containers were being tossed around on a tanker like legos. But this is The A-Team so it worked. And he was kind enough to throw in the classic explain the mission then show the mission working sequence. I love that stuff.

There seems to be a formula brewing with Carnahan's movies and it leads to nothing more than fun. The A-Team is not deep in any sort of way. It was just a good time for a couple of hours. Who doesn't want that every once and awhile?

8 out of 10