Your Acting's Like The End Of The World

What The A Team Does Right.

The A Team is a film that really shouldn't be as good as it is. If it were a terrible film it could easily be classed as a guilty pleasure, but fortunately enough it is not. What The A Team is is immensely enjoyable and surprisingly deals with how unintelligent the source material really is. 

The basic plot of The A Team is your typical group of men on a mission to find a MacGuffin (in this case some US money printing plates). When you strip the plot of The A Team down to its basic elements, it really should not work. Moving The A Team to Afghanistan? Really? 

But surprisingly it does work. Where The A Team begins is its first right move - the obligatory origin story. Whilst film going audiences are constantly given a barrage of new origin stories to deal with, The A Team updates itself for modern audiences with a snappy and enjoyable opening fifteen minutes. Whilst it's not uncommon for a pre-credits sequence to introduce or remind viewers where the characters have been, the pre-credits sequence of The A Team needs to be implemented more often for audiences (especially for the Spider-Man update that is sadly still going ahead). 

The first fifteen minutes introduce The A Team and instead of having the line producer or sound designer credits shown during scenes where there is dialogue or close up shots, these credits are delegated to the shots in between scenes where there are establishing shots or wide shots. Now this doesn't sound like much, but in execution it creates a less intrusive and more comfortable introduction to the film. It makes you feel as if there wasn't even a pre-credits sequence at all - and even the directors name Joe Carnahan is left to the sidelines for an aerial shot. The when The A Team are all together the title is slammed onto the screen and the film starts true and proper. 

Anybody coming into this film without knowing that this was an adaptation of an 80's TV series would still feel as if they knew the characters and could enjoy the film without prior knowledge of the characters - something which TV show to film adaptations sadly lack a little bit too much of lately. 

The next thing that The A Team does so correctly is knows how to have fun. The preview for the film showed you the most insane moment - a parachuting tank - and told you on the tin that this film was not to be taken seriously. The casting of Sharlto Copley is pure genius - an almost unknown actor, Copley is the fun that the film requires and the film lives and breathes on his comedic timing. Sadly he does go AWOL come the films over the top finale, but the fact that the rest of the cast are so obviously having fun that they carry the loss of Copley for the final twenty minutes. 

Big budget films require an obligatory love story and the casting of Jessica Biel is at first off putting, but relegating her to short one minute scenes makes her bearable and surprisingly enjoyable. We could have done without the flashbacks to earlier scenes from the film - it's only 100 minutes long, we have been paying attention and don't need reminding of whats going on - but fortunately they're over soon enough.

Amongst the insane action sequences - mostly with added CGI which for once does not look fake or out of place - there is great chemistry between the cast - Liam Neeson in a role which he relishes playing and no doubt given the timing of filming The A Team he needed a role like this; Bradley Cooper is the most enjoyable version of "Bradley Cooper" yet; Quinton Jackson is great as B.A. Baracus.  

Finally, the humour is perfect. The A Team is gloriously funny. A well timed - and extremely well executed - joke on the pathetic quality of 3D is the highlight. The action is understandable - you can see who is shooting or punching who and it is obvious as to what is happening. Once the ending comes around and the obligatory sequel set up - I really do hope there is a sequel - you can't help smiling at the surprise cameo and feel a hell of a lot better for having seen The A Team. In a year where there has not been enough big films to warrant actually leaving the house and spending $17 on a movie ticket, The A Team comes along as a breath of fresh air with a heavy dose of masculinity. 

Four Crazy South African Pilots Out Of Five.