After eight years and 80 missions, Col. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) and his extraordinary (and eccentric) trio of commandos Templeton ‘Face’ Peck (Bradley Cooper), B.A. Baracus (Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson) and H.M. ‘Mad’ Murdock (Sharlto Copley) are ready to call it a day and leave Iraq behind. But a vital mission, coming from a CIA stooge named Lynch (Patrick Wilson) and authorized by their commander General Morrison (Gerald McRaney) is one they cannot refuse, the group heading into the heart of Baghdad to serve their country one last time.

Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, Liam Neeson and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson in The A-Team © 20th Century Fox

Things go wrong and they are the ones blamed. Court-martialed, stripped of their rank and imprisoned in military prisons, this ‘A Team’ spends the next sixth months planning on how to get their good names returned to them after they make their escape. Once they do they are chased around the globe by the dogged Lt. Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel), everyone engaging in a cat and mouse game of hide, seek and destroy where nothing is what it seems and everything doesn’t always go according to plan.

So Joe Carnahan’s (along way from Narc yet really close to Smokin’ Aces) big screen update of The A-Team is nothing more than a live action cartoon. Granted, the 1980’s Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell television show was also nothing more than a live action cartoon, so to expect a theatrical remake to be any different would have been more than a tiny bit odd. This movie is dumb, thinly scripted and increasingly unbelievable. For about 80-percent of its running time it’s also one heck of a lot of fun, and considering how little else this Summer I can say the same thing about that’s a gift horse I’m not about to return.

Carnahan, Brian Bloom and Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) script is about as nonsensical as it comes. Granted, if rumors are correct they’re hardly the only ones who had a hand in trying to write a coherent storyline for this logic-free extravaganza (11 others reportedly worked on it, too), so for the filmmakers to have somehow avoided catastrophe is something of a miracle. The bottom line is that that thanks primarily to the cast and as well as Carnahan’s ability to stage relatively imaginative action sequences the film kept my attention, and while I always was aware about just how stupid all of this was almost embarrassingly I must admit I simply did not care.

As true as that statement is I also must state that I did not like the climax one single bit. A friend made the remark the whole finale felt like a producer had insisted they spend more money and blow more crap up, forcing an insane amount of spectacle on a picture that didn’t need any more. As much as I was willing to turn my brain off and just let this Velveeta Cheese-like spectacle consume me at a certain point I just wasn’t willing to do it anymore, the fun dissipating from the premises like helium from a leaky balloon.

While this isn’t a minor problem I was happy enough with the majority of Carnahan’s film to at least partially overlook it. I wasn’t too sure about the casting when I first heard about it but I must say I really did like all four men in their respective roles, especially Neeson and Copley. They all have undeniable chemistry that makes their mutual camaraderie utterly believable, and had the film but even close to straightforward I think you could have built something rather cool around the lot of them pretty easily.

I can’t believe I’m spending a lot of time on this so let me just say I had fun watching The A-Team. It doesn’t make a lick of sense (more so than the freakishly similar The Losers, though, so make of that what you will) and doesn’t care for a second that it doesn’t, the whole thing a Mission: Impossible-like throwaway piece of pop cinema that dissipates from memory almost as soon as it’s over. The movie is matinee fodder and nothing more, and for those predisposed to that sort of thing I have hard time imaging they’re going to come away afterwards all that disappointed.

Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4) 

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