Even though I have never watched a single episode of the television show on which it's based, I knew I wanted to see The A-Team once I saw the trailer, in which Bradley Cooper fires the machine gun turret on a tank as it plummets in midair. And the good news is that the movie is filled with moments like that, unapologetically and gleefully screaming "Summer popcorn movie!"Liam Neeson stars as Hannibal Smith, leader of an alpha unit - or A-team - that's regarded as the best covert ops team in the armed forces. Cooper plays Face, the beauty to Hannibal's brains, every bit the ladies' man; Quinton Jackson plays B.A., the warrior/pacifist role made popular by (or which popularized, if you want to go chicken-v.-egg) Mr. T; and Sharlto Copley, late of District 9, plays the borderline-cuckoo pilot Murdock. After a mission in Iraq goes awry and with the aid of the CIA's secretive Mr. Lynch (Patrick Wilson), the A-team turns fugitive in an attempt to recover a stolen MacGuffin while creatively evading recapture at the hands of Face's former flame Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel).
In terms of action, director Joe Carnahan gets points for imagination with his management of some of the most inventive action sequences on screen in recent years. In truth, the action is the real star of the movie: character development is negligible (though it exists, in small doses) and plot twists are present (though you'll probably see most of them coming), but it's the visuals that will make your eyes pop. If you've ever wanted to see a flying tank or a man parachute into a moving helicopter, this is the summer picture for you.
As for the acting, it fits well into the "action film" stock tropes, but the fact that the cast is made up of very talented people brings this film in above the level of "cliche." Though he's not quite as good as in Taken (review coming soon) or Love Actually, Neeson is endearing as always, showing off his sense of humor and ennabling us to have as much fun as he is; Cooper too is just as fun, having made a satisfying transformation from the slightly irritating Will Tippin on Alias to the genial star of gutbusters like The Hangover. Jackson and Copley are supporting characters in the classic tradition, not overbearing but still entertaining; my one gripe (aside from the broad strokes with which B.A. is painted, which I imagine is faithful to the spirit of the show) is that Copley's thick South African dialect slips through in a few moments, distracting from his otherwise jolly turn. And Wilson and Biel are just fine in their roles; Wilson is the stronger of the two, stepping solidly out of the schleppy shoes he normally fills for this slick and cagey part, while Biel's acting chops are overshadowed by how pretty she is (which is really the only requirement given to female co-leads in an action movie - attractiveness).
So if there's a word that encapsulates my take on The A-Team, it's "fun." It may not be credible or particularly layered, but The A-Team is a lot of fun. And that, first and foremost, is all I ask of a movie - that it be entertaining, that I feel satisfied on a gut level if not on a creative level. Fortunately, what this movie lacks in narrative imagination, it makes up for in how far it pushes the envelope of originality. There are numerous moments in the film that caused me to think to myself, "I've never seen that before," and that alone is worth the price of admission. If the action sequences were more conventional, in the vein of Michael Bay explosion-centric CGI-fests, perhaps this would only be a so-so movie. But what might have been an average action vehicle has a backbone which makes it stand up straight and be better than it ought to have been. This, in a way, is what The Losers should have been.
The A-Team isn't one of the greatest films of all time - nor does it pretend to be. What it is- and what it is successfully - is a bona fide popcorn flick that doesn't shortchange the audience on pure
visceral entertainment.
Like all good summer popcorn blockbusters, The A-Team is rated PG-13, this time "for intense sequences of action and violence throughout, language and smoking." Basically, stuff blows up, people get shot, mild profanity (no F-bombs) gets issued, and Liam Neeson smokes a cigar.
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