"The A-Team" is awesome. And I'm not necessarily talking about the old television show, which I only have bits and pieces of memories about. I know that anytime it was on as a kid, I enjoyed it, but frankly beyond the theme song, I know little of the characters other than Mr. T. But the theme song itself elevated the show to a level of excitement that would not have been present otherwise. Yet, really all this movie needed was two hours of the theme song playing in the background while stuff blew up. Unfortunately it was only the latter half of that requirement that followed through. Because if there's one thing "The A-Team" movie was missing, it was excessive use of the theme song.
After we're quickly introduced to the essentially random formation of The A-Team at the beginning of the movie, we flash forward eight years and eighty missions later to the closing days of the Iraq occupation. Turns out, Saddam had some American currency plates hidden in Baghdad and it's up to The A-Team to retrieve them. Of course, Captain Sosa (Jessica Biel) is trying to get them back for the Army, so she wants The A-Team to stay as far away from Baghdad as possible while Agent Lynch (Patrick Wilson) covertly recruits the team in violation of Army orders to retrieve the plates. Of course, upon retrieval the plates go missing and The A-Team is blamed for it and sentenced to 10 years in prison. This not surprisingly leads to an elaborate breakout in an attempt for them to clear their names and restore their standing as Army Rangers.
The movie is just completely insane, mostly in a good way. Every few minutes Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) chews on his cigar, mentions something about having a plan, how everything is part of a plan, or that the plan is coming together. There's a lot of plan talk in this one. Yet, every plan is not only executed perfectly but is almost inferring that The A-Team is almost omniscient in their ability to perceive events. They seem to plan for contingencies that there would be no logical way of conceiving.
Fortunately the movie strikes this fantastic balance between insane and hilarious, never taking itself seriously and consistently ramping up the stakes. In fact, one of the biggest character plot points is whether or not BA Baracas (Quinton Jackson) is going to bring back his mohawk. And that's one of the more poignant dilemmas. He's no Mr. T, but he does bring his own charm and charisma to the role. We all just need to accept there will never be another Mr. T. The other two characters, Face (Bradley Cooper) and Murdock (Sharlto Copley) throw in a smooth bravado and batshit craziness respectively.
The plot at times becomes needlessly complicated but works well enough to provide a framework on which the rest of the movie can chug along presenting one crazy action set piece after another. The whole aura is one of "Yeah, we know this isn't humanly possible, but we're doing it anyway," which allows the movie to be enjoyed on a more visceral level than other action movies that attempt to take a more serious tone. Having such a solid, charismatic cast and solid direction makes this a much more superior movie than Joe Carnahan's last effort, the essentially pointless "Smokin' Aces".
To be frank, the only thing this movie was missing was more theme song. The full theme only kicks in at the very end, and as background music to a movie being watched within the film itself. Of course, this didn't stop me from playing the music on my own in my head which made it that much more enjoyable. Which isn't to say that Alan Silvestri's score wasn't solid in its own right. It was. I just happened to be slightly biased towards theme song overuse.
That entirely pointless gripe aside, The A-Team is an incredibly solid action movie for anyone who wants nothing more than to sit in their seat for two hours and have an awesome time.
GRADE: B+
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