So The A-Team wasn’t the steaming pile of garbage that everyone expected it to be. Even I was guilty of uttering the words “The Losers looks more true to the A-Team than the A-Team does” back when they were flashing the trailers before every movie, but I was wrong and the A-Team didn’t fail. I had no idea that Sharlto Copley was such a funny individual (he plays Murdock), his timing and intentional/unintentional switches in accents made for quite a time whenever he was onscreen. After seeing him in District 9 and now this, he is quickly growing to be one of my favorite celebs. In the original television show it was a toss-up between Murdock and Faceman in terms of who was the least talked about individual – well when you see A-Team the movie, you will be talking about Murdock and chuckling at his antics throughout.
The cast was phenomenal – yes this means newcomer Rashad (Rampage) Jackson too, dude wasn’t fumbling his lines or failing the way you would expect any MMA turned actor to do. Not only did Rashad pull the B.A. Baracus character off, he found a way to be likeable while doing it. We all know that Mr. T’s shoes are of a size that cannot be easily filled, hell any 80’s icon being “emulated” is a difficult feat, but seeing Rashad you saw “B.A. Baracus” not Mr.T and for this movie, this was a good thing. Liam Neeson was good, but he always is isn’t he? And Bradley Cooper was the PERFECT pick for Face. Not only does he play the douche bag with ease (remember him in Wedding Crashers) but I’m sure dude’s time in the gym got some panties wet in the audience – no homo.
The one downside to the cast is my beloved Jessica Biel. Now Spicy readers, if you have seen many of my reviews you know me to be a HUGE Biel fanboi (looks not acting) but she was odd as hell in this movie. She felt forced, unnecessary and to top it off they go on about how beautiful she is yadda, yadda, yadda but this wan’t Jess at her finest. The good thing is her screen time is limited and while I was disappointed in them casting her across from Faceman (ScarJo would have nailed this role), she did not bring the score down overall. The real downer to the A-Team was the god-awful writing…
Spicy Hater: Erm Greg, the original show had crappy writing too, how does that even add anything to this review? The show was campy and pretty silly given the violence and lack of death therein.
Well SH, this movie is not the television show, while it may come close with little things that bring about nostalgia, it is far from the television show so I warn nostalgic fans to go in there with this in mind. The A-Team is on the level of Crank where the stunts they perform, tactics they come up with and situations they survive is so far beyond reality that you may as well consider it to be a cartoon. Seriously, they were using projectiles from a tank to guide it as it fell from 20,000 ft in the air towards a body of water. Murdock pulls off loop-de-loops with ease in a helicopter, oh and Hannibal (Liam Neeson) escapes a cremation chamber… if you’re looking for reality this is not the movie for you.
Overall the A-Team is simple, action-packed fun. What’s the term… popcorn movie – there ya go. It’s the “sit back, turn your brain off and watch things blow up” type of movie, sans the offensive rape of the mind that a Transformers was. I highly recommend you check it out, not for the killer story (rolls eyes) but for the awesome characters. And oh ya… stay for the credits.
Written by Greg Dragon – who has written 364 reviews on Spicy Movie Dogs.
Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.
