A-Team, B-Movie

A few years ago I happened to catch on TV by chance an episode of The A-Team. I was quite pleased, having fond memories and was primed by the opening music and sequence. Unfortunately, I found it disappointingly bland, distinctly lacking in action. It was like watching Scooby-Doo, another favourite from my childhood that on a more mature viewing was unmasked - like the creep who had posed as a good guy - as hackneyed and predictable. Maybe, like those who don’t like Frasier but are badgered to tune in, I had caught a rare lame episode. Or simply my rose-tinted reminisces were revealed as just that.
Still, I was determined to watch the big screen adaptation, though the movie, even in previews, was hardly bigged up as a must-see. It could have been a travesty but that did not deter me, especially as Altaa and I had been queuing to see Inception and that had sold out as we were in line, with The A-Team the next in show and that perilously close to being full up, on its premiere on Wednesday. Given my revised opinion of the TV series, the film itself wasn’t so bad, lending it very much a Bourne Identity/ Supremacy/ Ultimatum feeling with sultry locales outside the US and Europe and technocratic urban centres within. Again, they miraculously find all manner of useful materials and set about these with Blue Peter zeal. George Peppard as Hannibal and Mr T. as BA Baracus were always going to be tough acts to follow; Liam Neeson is miscast but Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson does his best with his character who develops a conscience, when in the TV series all the good guys had one, rather than just being out for ‘revenge’.
When a film is directed by Joe Carnahan it usually isn’t a good sign, despite being a flavour of the month at Hollywood right now. He’s probably a better pitcher to get that green light than anything he does behind the camera. I felt let down that the original score got only a brief (and post-modern) cameo and then a single chord at the end, before the credits rolled with someone roaring in a charmless way. Overall, though, it was amusing in a dumb way, especially the interaction between Sharlto Copley as Howling Mad Murdock and Jackson, with some sharp lines from the bad guys. There was nothing high-brow about it, with a ridiculously pat resolution of Baracus’ moral struggle over killing people (which didn’t need to happen anyway), but it had a few twists that I didn’t expect. There was held out the prospect of a sequel but as this film concerned itself with the struggle to clear their names, the idea of doing what they did in the TV series holds little appeal as it simply would not transfer well for a two hour slot in a multiplex. It's summed up by the fact that the Orange advert parodying the film as an inducement to turn off your mobile phone is funnier than the entire film that follows. Let this be it. Two out of five, but migrating towards three.