The A-Team

Shoot 'em up-porn at a high level, The A-Team is thoroughly enjoyable as a stand-alone movie or as an homage to the TV series, which last aired 23 years ago (23 years!). It's all tongue-in-cheek, as it should be, with plenty of gunfire, explosions, and wisecracks.

The casting was spot on, with Liam Neeson being a carbon copy of George Peppard's Hannibal Smith, maybe even better, given the magic of hindsight and a $100 million budget. Pretty boy Bradley Cooper provides comic relief and serious action chops when needed as Faceman, but I still picture him as Sydney's friend on Alias and the chef on Kitchen Confidential. It took me a few minutes to recognize Sharlto Copley as Murdock. Not a household name, he was the guy rounding up aliens in 2009's District 9. They covered up his South African accent by having him do funny accents from around the world. Only an overthinker like me would notice.

The plot is a throw-away, providing a minimal structure for the next stunt. There were a plethora of villains and they all were pretty good, with very little dipping into caricature (When the heroes are escapees from military prisons, at some point, everyone is a bad guy so it pays to have good ones). The interlocking of bad guys from the Army, CIA and Blackwater was a bit confusing until I remembered that I didn't care, then the movie was totally enjoyable thereafter.

I have a quibble, of course. The hot, talented and hot Jessica Biel plays an Army Intel officer (and Face's ex) who leads the manhunt for the A-Team Her name is Charisa Sosa Yes, Charisa with an 'h' and a missing 's.' Shouldn't her name have been 'Decker?' Or maybe Amy Allen? Everything else was spot on, why mess up her name?

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