Bringing The A-Team, the 1980s action TV series, to the big screen 20 or more years down the track is yet another instance of the poverty of Hollywood’s imagination. It is, therefore, a pleasant surprise to discover that the film isn’t wholly terrible. But neither is it good. As two hours of innocuous and forgettable action to help down the popcorn, it is perfectly acceptable.
It’s obvious from the first few minutes that the The A-Team is going for the charm offensive rather than the adrenalin rush to draw in its audience, and it clearly wants to include the very young.
With tongue very firmly in cheek, its heroic characters are even less real than many a recent super hero, who, directors are keen to point out, exhibit moral failings and human weaknesses. The members of the A-Team — Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, Lieutenant Templeton “Faceman” Peck, Sergeant Bosco Albert “B.A.” (Bad Attitude) Baracus, Captain H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock — have no such problems. Their nicknames are about as deep as the characters get.
The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Iraq War. A batch of plates used to print US dollars is the prize being sought not just by the Iraqis, but various nefarious elements within the US defense establishment.
The happy-go-lucky A-Team is pitted against a black ops unit led by Pike (Brian Bloom), the mad villain of the piece. There is a shadowy CIA connection with Patrick Wilson as Colonel Lynch and a romantic interest in the shape of Captain Carissa Sosa (Jessica Biel), who is included
as eye candy for older kids in
the audience.
That said, The A-Team doesn’t take itself too seriously. Like many action movies, it cheerfully demands a total suspension of disbelief, playing fast and loose with the laws of physics, and amid the action and fantastic plot twists, seems to hope that audiences will ignore the story’s gaping holes and absurdities.
To a large extent that ploy is successful. An extended scene in which the team uses a tank to make a midair escape from a transport aircraft is laugh-out-loud funny. While the dialog isn’t razor-sharp, there are a few good lines, and the comedy on the whole is broad and visual.
For an action film with a high body count, there is very little actual violence, and what violence there is comes rendered in an almost cartoonish style. This may be as good a remedy as any to the bloody violence of many recent adventure films, yet the result is not a return to an age of greater innocence but a simple lack of urgency.
And that is The A-Team’s greatest problem — it wants to appeal to a wide audience, including young children, as evidenced by the range of action figures that have been released in conjunction with the film (suitable for children 6 and up). Younger audiences may find the madcap action enough of a joy ride, but for action junkies, The A-Team fails to engage the mind or the senses.
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