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Just watching this on telly...
Colonel John Smith, Lieutenant Templeton Peck, Corporal Bosco Albert Baracus and Captain HM Murdock are one, well four, of a kind.
They're the best in the business when it comes to Military tactics and special missions due to their disparate personalities.
When the four are framed for a high profile crime they didn't commit, they go on an all out tactical fist fight against the people who framed them to clear their names and bring justice to those responsible...
... but along with the way, they will be tested physically and mentally to the extreme and will find out if they really are as good as they think they are as they become the heroes we all know and love...
... Hannibal, Face, Bad Attitude and Howlin' Mad. They are The A-Team.
It was very very hard to like this movie... it's taking something that's loved by near three generations of people and tweaking it to modern day and adding a hell of a lot of CGI and OTT action scenes that are so OTT, it rivals the radish shooting scaffolding poles that were used in the TV series.
The good points are the overall screenplay and general storyline. There was little for the writers to do really with the backstory being written years ago already, but with the tweaking and modernising added to the story gives a slightly different flavour to the proceedings.
For a start the movie isn't nostalgic... at all. What we have is a movie with the same character names and some actors who look a tiny bit like the originals.
The rest however is completely new... especially the way our four favourite heroes have been portrayed. If anything though, it actually works really really well as it is. It gives a fresh new start to the foursome and adds a nicely and simply rounded viewing of how they all got together and became the beloved A-Team.
Not all of it works though sadly, and it's hard to buy into such an already established series that's being remade.
What really works well with the new set up though is the humour and comedic elements to the script writing and overall dialogue. There are some one liners throughout that actually made me laugh out loud and other scenes of mild slapstick and action oriented humour that gave me more than a few smiles along the way.
One thing that didn't work though is how the team, particularly Hannibal, gets his info on the badguys... it seems to be a completely overlooked detail in the plot.
The acting is actually really well put together though.
Liam Neeson as Hannibal adds his own little spin on things yet remains strangely recognisable as the character we know.
Bradley Cooper as Face... he too adds his own touches and still remains recognisable as the Face we're all familiar with.
Quinton Jackson is a touch and go situation though. He feels wrong in the role to start with... but as the film progresses he actually grew on me and really showed his worth as our beloved BA Baracus. There is a faux philosophical side to him though that really doesn't suit the rewritten character. His knuckle tattoos are funny though.
The stand out role though is Sharlto Copley as Howlin Mad Murdock... his completely new take on the character, again mixed with new touches, gives the audience one of the best reimagined film characters I've seen in a long time.
Back up comes from Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Brian Bloom, Gerald McRaney and... Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz show their support too.
Biel in particular is pretty good as a kind of frenemy to the boys.
All involved though are able to give apt performances when the going gets tough and some of the more sombre scenes and they all hold the comedy together really well too.
The main foursome in particular have massive chemistry too.
The action though is really what the movie stands for.
It's highly CG, full of explosive action, the likes of which I've never seen outside of a comicbook and has lashings of seriously cartoonish stunts and shoot'em ups. the good thing with the action though is that it starts out as it wants to go on... it's cartoony and OTT from the very start.
However, despite the nature of some of the action, it still holds well against the more serious take on the characters, the humorous nature of the script and the tweaked nature of the screenplay.
One thing missing from the action though is a genuine antagonist... the bad guys don't really give much of a threat to the heroes writing wise.
Review #162: The A-Team
Colonel John Smith, Lieutenant Templeton Peck, Corporal Bosco Albert Baracus and Captain HM Murdock are one, well four, of a kind.
They're the best in the business when it comes to Military tactics and special missions due to their disparate personalities.
When the four are framed for a high profile crime they didn't commit, they go on an all out tactical fist fight against the people who framed them to clear their names and bring justice to those responsible...
... but along with the way, they will be tested physically and mentally to the extreme and will find out if they really are as good as they think they are as they become the heroes we all know and love...
... Hannibal, Face, Bad Attitude and Howlin' Mad. They are The A-Team.
It was very very hard to like this movie... it's taking something that's loved by near three generations of people and tweaking it to modern day and adding a hell of a lot of CGI and OTT action scenes that are so OTT, it rivals the radish shooting scaffolding poles that were used in the TV series.
The good points are the overall screenplay and general storyline. There was little for the writers to do really with the backstory being written years ago already, but with the tweaking and modernising added to the story gives a slightly different flavour to the proceedings.
For a start the movie isn't nostalgic... at all. What we have is a movie with the same character names and some actors who look a tiny bit like the originals.
The rest however is completely new... especially the way our four favourite heroes have been portrayed. If anything though, it actually works really really well as it is. It gives a fresh new start to the foursome and adds a nicely and simply rounded viewing of how they all got together and became the beloved A-Team.
Not all of it works though sadly, and it's hard to buy into such an already established series that's being remade.
What really works well with the new set up though is the humour and comedic elements to the script writing and overall dialogue. There are some one liners throughout that actually made me laugh out loud and other scenes of mild slapstick and action oriented humour that gave me more than a few smiles along the way.
One thing that didn't work though is how the team, particularly Hannibal, gets his info on the badguys... it seems to be a completely overlooked detail in the plot.
The acting is actually really well put together though.
Liam Neeson as Hannibal adds his own little spin on things yet remains strangely recognisable as the character we know.
Bradley Cooper as Face... he too adds his own touches and still remains recognisable as the Face we're all familiar with.
Quinton Jackson is a touch and go situation though. He feels wrong in the role to start with... but as the film progresses he actually grew on me and really showed his worth as our beloved BA Baracus. There is a faux philosophical side to him though that really doesn't suit the rewritten character. His knuckle tattoos are funny though.
The stand out role though is Sharlto Copley as Howlin Mad Murdock... his completely new take on the character, again mixed with new touches, gives the audience one of the best reimagined film characters I've seen in a long time.
Back up comes from Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Brian Bloom, Gerald McRaney and... Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz show their support too.
Biel in particular is pretty good as a kind of frenemy to the boys.
All involved though are able to give apt performances when the going gets tough and some of the more sombre scenes and they all hold the comedy together really well too.
The main foursome in particular have massive chemistry too.
The action though is really what the movie stands for.
It's highly CG, full of explosive action, the likes of which I've never seen outside of a comicbook and has lashings of seriously cartoonish stunts and shoot'em ups. the good thing with the action though is that it starts out as it wants to go on... it's cartoony and OTT from the very start.
However, despite the nature of some of the action, it still holds well against the more serious take on the characters, the humorous nature of the script and the tweaked nature of the screenplay.
One thing missing from the action though is a genuine antagonist... the bad guys don't really give much of a threat to the heroes writing wise.
---
All in all... massively OTT action, a funny script/dialogue and a pretty well written story and screenplay... not all of it works and it's treading on hallowed ground with the overall premise but still, it's an entertaining actioner and holds up well against most other recent action-comedy films.
I found it hard to like at first but over the running time, it actually grew on me.
I found it hard to like at first but over the running time, it actually grew on me.
My rating: 82%
