The A-Team
A weak storyline and supporting characters can't put a dampener on Cooper and co.'s dangerously infectious capability for fun.
Smokin' Aces director Joe Carnahan faced some stick when he was given the task of reviving the much-loved 80s show into a glossy summer blockbuster. Any grumblings can now be put to rest, as he's assembled a near-perfect cast for The A-Team - one that does the original proud.
The film hangs on its leading men, and the camaraderie between Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, Liam Neeson and Quinton Jackson is a joy. No matter how attached you may be to the original Face, Murdock, Hannibal and BA Baracus, it is impossible not to fall in love with the chemistry between these four men, who appear to having the time of their lives onscreen.
Jackson has the hardest task, taking on Mr T's physically iconic BA. He's careful not to descend into parody, balancing aggression with cute humour perfectly. Neeson's fatherly Hannibal certainly has the charisma, but not necessarily the wit and cunning of his predecessor. District 9 star Sharlto Copley is a riot as Murdock, with all his moments of madness feeling off-the-cuff. He has fun with hilarious little asides (a Braveheart impression, a cameo of his natural South African accent), and spends most of the movie playfully torturing Jackson. Copley and Cooper are the stars of the show, with the latter's Face holding the entire thing together with all the best lines. Cooper has that natural gift so apparent in The Hangover: a combination of matinee idol looks with a masculine sense of fun. It was pondered at last night's premiere that he could be a new Indiana Jones - we're talking Harrison Ford level of cool here.
The when these four get together, the fun factor is off the scale. An extended opening sequence shows how these ragtag ex-Rangers get together, in an exhilarating, and clearly absurd, sequence of events. Murdock's recruitment leads the way for chopper-based heroics, and "eight years and eighty successful missions later", we meet them again in Iraq as an elite combat unit. There follows a confusing, quite dull bit of exposition, sadly delivered by Jessica Biel, her talent wasted on a one-dimensional Captain - the one that got away from Face. Respectfully, at least she's not there for the totty-count; all gratuitous hotness is left to Face, just as it should be. Patrick Wilson is another under-used actor, in a character so pointless, I can't even remember what it is he did.
Transforming a hokey story of the week to a big screen requires at least some effort to write something worth parting money for. Unfortunately, this dream team has to work with a tedious plot involving US treasury plates being used to make counterfeit currency. Thrilling. So the glorious A-Team's mission is to reclaim the plates following a disastrous initial effort which got them falsely imprisoned. With a jailbreak planned, the shenanigans get underway once more, following a mid-film sag, leading to the infamous flying tank moment - it really is fantastically ridiculous, and quite brilliant.
So don't go in expecting to be enthralled by anything other than The A-Team themselves. A weak storyline and supporting characters can't put a dampener on Cooper and co.'s dangerously infectious capability for fun. Hugely enjoyable, but with an irritating feeling of disappointment simmering beneath.
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