MOVIE REVIEW: THE A-TEAM

The A-Team comes from director Joe Carnahan and stars Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Sharlto Copley and Quinton Jackson. Based off the 80's television series, The A-Team is about a group of Iraq war veterans who are forced to go on the run after they are accused of a crime they didn't commit.

From the very beginning, you need to go into this movie with your brain turned off and ready to have some fun. Not all movies can pull this off, but The A-Team does it beautifully. Right off the bat, the film starts out pretty much with a fifteen minute long action sequence that sets the tone as to what you can expect for pretty much the rest of the film. I wasn't a huge fan of the opening sequence. I thought it was quickly rushed together and I found the dialogue horrible. But once it's over and the film starts moving along, it rebounded very quickly.

The film is over-the-top action with one liners sprinkled throughout, but what makes this all work is the cast. For years there was an A-Team film going around with John Singleton attached to direct and Tyrese attached to play B.A.. Thankfully, that film never got made. I was worried at first because of Quinton Jackson being an MMA fighter and having no real acting experience. I was hoping they wouldn't deck him out in gold necklaces and have him going around saying "I pitty da fool" the whole time. Now Jackson's performance wasn't great, but he pulled it off. They did a great job modernizing his character.

Then we have Sharlto Copley, whose only other film was District 9. How would he do in a roll like this? The answer is great. He was in my opinion the best part of the film, and I see many more roles coming his way in the near future. I never watched the television series, so I'm not familiar with the Murdock from the show. But he nailed how they were trying to portray his character in the film.

As for the rest of the cast, they all did great job, but they had a lot more acting experience than the Jackson and Copley. It's good to see Patrick Wilson in another big film. I think he has a lot to offer, but he hasn't had that breakout role yet.

As I said before, not every over-the-top action film can pull off a good end result. Films like Armageddon and Starship Troopers get away with it while films like Transformers 2 and Knight and Day somehow produce a horrible outcome. Why it works in this film I think is, that they actually show you these extravagant action scenes being planned out. To me that helped me buy into what I was watching a little more as opposed to just having long action sequences shoved in my face.

The A-Team is not a perfect movie by any means, but it works. The cast put this film on their backs and carried it to the finish line for a positive result. I give it a seven out of ten.