The A-Team

The A-Team directed by Joe Carnahan staring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Jessica Biel, and Patrick Wilson. 

Alpha Michael Foxtrot. 

I’ve got to honestly say when I first heard they were taking this TV show and turning it into a movie I groaned really loud and thought this is just a disaster waiting to happen. I didn’t see it in the theater and waited a long time to see it when it came out on DVD. Even the first time I saw it I didn’t really think much of it, but for some reason I saw it again and for whatever reason it really gelled with me and I found myself really liking this movie. I’ve seen it a lot since that first time and each time it gets better. 

 This is one of those movies that for me I would label a “comfort movie”. There are a lot reasons I like this movie. Upon watching it last night I really liked the pacing of the movie and for an action movie, pacing is a lot of what helps everything move along. I mean look at the first Die Hard movie for some of the best pacing for an action movie ever. One badly paced or placed scene can ruin a lot of action movies. Take a look at the Pirate of the Caribbean, Transformers and the Mission Impossible movies as some examples where pacing can ruin a lot of the action: they are so over long and have so many scenes that push the story forward instead of helping it forward. The A-Team just keeps moving along there’s not to many scenes that hinder the action from moving forward, just about every scene has the plot in mind. 

Another thing that helps the pacing move along is having good or interesting characters which is something The A-Team manages to have in four main characters that help to make this a genuinely funny movie without falling into the gimmick (Depp) and the totally miscast dream filled look (Bloom and Knightly). Every scene these characters aren’t in the people in those scenes are talking about them so they are still being brought to the mind of the audience and not being left behind. The most important thing about having these kinds of characters is have some good actors flesh them out. The A-Team manages this with some great casting with Rampage being the only odd man out but I don’t fully think that’s his problem because the other actors around him are just that good.  He didn’t really have a chance but he’s competent in what he does and definitely lets the movie rest on the shoulders of the other guys. This movie belongs to Liam Nesson, Bradley Cooper, and Sharlto Copley they own every scene they are in and it’s fun to watch them interact among themselves. There were just so many scenes where I found myself laughing out loud as I watched these guys act together. They were also given some memorable dialogue but then I also wonder how much of it was ad-libbed and if it was ad-libbed all the better for the actors who did it. I really liked this pre-poster design for this movie also. It's got a nice feel to it.