In the eighties the A-team was a very popular television series, which i loved watching growing up. I had a B.A.Baracus action figure, the A-team fan with several Faces, Murdochs, Hannibals and B.A.’s and the complete series of collectible cards. I still remember them coming to the Netherlands and seeing it on TV. The airport was crowded. They really were extremely popular.
A while ago Justin Lee Collins, who makes a series called “Bring back…” (in which he tries to find the cast members of a specific show or movie and get them together again), tried to get the A-team together again. Of course George Peppard has already passed, but he did manage to meet the rest of the cast and some even got together for drinks. It really brought back memories and it also showed how old the cast has become.
When remaking the series into a movie it was a logical step to recast the iconic characters, something Mr.T didn’t approve of.
Because this was an eighties show not everyone will be familiar with the A-team. In the original series they fought in Vietnam, so this needed some modernisation as well, so the first part of the story is an updated origin story. We learn how they got to meet each other, why they ended up in jail and of course how they managed to escape. The start of the movie is exciting and has a lot of action sequences, which of course is a perfect fit for the A-team.
There are action sequences from beginning till the end. The story itself is not that special (they have to retrieve some money printing plates), but let’s face it, in the TV series the stories were not very good either, they were just a reason to fight with the bad guys. What you want to see when you are watching the A-Team is them preparing for something and seeing the pay off. The movie doesn’t completely succeed to do that. During two action scenes there are cuts between the actual execution and the preparation, which is very irritating as you are constantly pulled out of the action. Because of it those scenes feel too calculated. As a viewer you are not wondering if everything will go according to plan. I’d rather had seen it edited the way they did in for example the Back to the Future films, where you first see a model of how everything should happen and only during the execution of it you find out if they manage to do it.
The actors, Liam Neeson as Hannibal, Quinton Jackson as B.A., Bradley Cooper as Face and Sharlto Copley as Murdock are very well cast. I thought Liam Neeson was the least impressive. Sharlto Copley really disappears into his role and shows that his acting in District 9 wasn’t a fluke. He really manages to create his own crazy version of Murdoch.
The A-team is a fun action movie that is definitely worth watching, especially if you are a fan of the series. Do not expect an exact copy, but you will see that the spirit of the original is present and that’s enough to enjoy it.
Score: 7