Secure Immaturity

I’ve learned a lot of things lately thanks to The A Team: mainly that if I ever cross the Central Intelligence Agency, I want Jessica Biel to be the one to arrest me. Hard. But I also learned that sometimes, with enough effort and good casting, these seemingly endless television adaptations can actually be GOOD. Granted, for every Charlie’s Angels (a solid television rehash) there is a Dukes of Hazzard or an I, Spy. For every Brady Bunch Movie (a shockingly funny little satire) there is a Dragnet or Bewitched or McHale’s Navy (or on and on and on). The A Team happens to be one of the few films that not only surprises you for being decent (in fact, good, if not, at times, great) but indicates that there can only be bad things to come. The A Team is a rarity and when something like The A Team happens, only bad things tend to follow.

At this point in our movie going lives, the idea of an 80s television show being remade into a movie already has the stamp of failure on it. We’ve already got enough remakes, reboots, rehashes, restarts, resets, and redos to deal with and the television ‘reimagining’ is just another tired genre of film we have to deal with. And it never seems to end. So, without doubt, when I had to choose between Predators and/or The A Team, two titles I wasn’t exactly enthused to see, I went for Predators. But someone convinced me The A Team was the way to go instead and, alas, I am writing to you about how great it was! Yeah. . .life does have surprises.

I never watched much of the original show (okay, I never watched it at all) but, naturally, I was familiar with the popular character of BA Baracus (Mr. T) and that van. Plus, Reg Barclay from Star Trek: The Next Generation was on it (or so I’ve heard). So maybe the complete lack of knowledge of the show allowed me to enjoy the film. Though I hadn’t watched a second of the television show, I don’t remember anyone telling me it was violent and lots of people died. The A Team movie not only has lots and lots and lots of death BUT it also has probably my favorite on screen kill I’ve EVER seen. I literally kept laughing after the death stroke (delivered by BA) for about four whole minutes, much to the audiences dismay (more on this later).

The film, besides being a television-remakedothingy, also had a cast I wasn’t too thrilled with. I’ll always go for Liam Neeson (and it’s nice to see him survive in a movie these days) but I really don’t like Bradley Cooper that much and I hate MMA (so I, therefore, didn’t like that Rampage fellow who plays BA). I was pretty shocked to finally like Cooper in something and that those MMA guys actually have brains and acting skills. Without doubt, combined with the wonderful Sharlto Copley (from District 9), the foursome make a really fantastic and engaging group. The A Team, in this case, isn’t just a brand to exploit but an actually well oiled machine of acting and laughs.

Plus, I was blindsided by a few casting quirks that made me happy. I’ve always liked Jessica Biel and having her run around in short skirts while holding guns is more then just okay in my book. But Patrick Wilson shows up as well and plays this really odd CIA agent who you’re not sure if you are supposed to be afraid of or make fun of. And video game voice artist Brian Bloom makes for a one dimensional but creepy villain that you can easily root against. So by establishing a great cast and not exploiting the name The A Team, the movie manages to start off on the right foot.

Now sure, if you have NO expectations almost anything good can save a film and boost the praise but The A Team, besides the cast, actually has some mind boggling action set pieces that are surprising and intense. I suppose it’s the fact that the four heroes really never takes themselves or their situations seriously that makes the action both ridiculous and fun. This film contains, and is not limited to, The A Team piloting a tank in the air while shooting down computerized planes with a gun turret, conducting an operation on a storage boat in which it’s entire payload of multi-ton cargo containers fly in the air and smash things, use magnets to attached themselves to moving vehicles in sewer drains, use a helicopter to do 360s, handcuff rabid rottweilers, invade a German psyche ward, and get in a gun fight while spelunking down a glass building. Oh and there was that one legendary kill where BA takes a dude and literally body slams his neck and face into a cargo container with the force of a hurricane. That was awesome.

The movie definitely benefits from NOT being an origin story (only about 20 minutes is focused on the actual assembly of the team) and thanks to that story choice, we get an hour and a half of solid action fun without a need to CREATE chemistry. Instead, while SOME of the chemistry of the A Team is forced on us, the actors involved really connect and work well together. There is a ‘twist’ and a few sub plots along the way, like the almost needless love story between Biel and Cooper and BA going through a spiritual crisis, but the basic idea is this: The A Team were set up and they need to be vindicated and thanks to the fun loving bunch that is assembled here, we really want to see The A Team win. And while it’s no surprise that our heroes will prevail in the fictional world, it was quite a surprise that The A Team succeeded in reality. It shouldn’t have at all. . .but it did. Go watch it. Fool!