Last night Melissa and I watched ‘The A-Team’ and I have to say, I actually really enjoyed it. Was it the best action movie in a long time? No. Was it thought provoking and Oscar worthy? No. But it was a fun summer popcorn movie, and that’s all it needed to be. It wasn’t Avatar or Inception or anything along those lines, it was a movie that helps you escape into the world of ‘The A-Team’ and I am glad I was able to see it.

Recently, I’ve felt that there has been a lack of something in movies, A-Team included, and that is a true sense that something big is going to happen if the heroes of the movie don’t beat the bad guy. I can pop in a bunch of old movies (I don’t actually think they are old, but I grew up with them so some people could argue that they are in fact old), and there was something at stake. The lives of the hero or the hostages or the world, were all on the line if the bad guys weren’t killed. Raise your hand if you’ve seen a movie recently that truly put you on the edge of your seat and made you root for the good guys? I’m not saying that The A-Team needed this, but I felt like this was a good place to talk about this. I feel that as time moves on, many filmmakers are less about bringing the audience in and more about wowing the audience…I for one would love to be brought in and felt like something could happen to one of these characters.  And I’ll leave it at that…

Being a child of the 80’s and 90’s I remember watching reruns of The A-Team, featuring Mr. T as B.A. Baracus, it was a show that now in retrospect I will say was MacGyver with a team (even though A-Team clearly started filming two full years before MacGyver was even in production as a television series). Building things, blowing stuff up, great show, plans coming together and its iconic opening theme and monologue have been a favorite of mine for years.

I still have it on my iPod and play it occasionally, even if it is just to for a joke.

And sadly, like many great things from the 80’s (wow, has that ever been put into a sentence before?) it has itself been parodied into oblivion.

But I digress, I didn’t really have high expectations that Hollywood could make a good remake of an old televised series. The list of great to well-made television remade into feature films are few and far between compared to the horrible to forgettable ones. For every Adams Family there is a Dukes of Hazzard, Wild Wild West and Land of the Lost. For every Fugitive there is a Charlie’s Angels, Lost in Space, Mod Squad and Avengers.

Even the forgettable ones are just that…does anyone remember the Ben Stiller movie Starsky and Hutch…And even a good action movie like Transformers has the less then memorable sequel like Revenge of the Fallen.

This past weekend, The Green Hornet came out in theaters with a decent outing on Friday with an11 million dollars, (and IMDB is reporting that Green Hornet made 40 mil for the weekend) pretty damn good start for a movie dumped in the void known as January. But we shall see if Hornet is in either the good or the bad side of the TV turn Movie list.

Going into A-Team I had little to no expectations, I was hoping that they didn’t mess up a great movie. I had forgotten that Joe Carnahan had directed The A-Team and I couldn’t think of a better person to direct this movie, it didn’t need a big name director or a complete unknown who would allow the producers and studio execs to run the show. Carnahan with his Narc and Smokin’ Aces films can handle the action and the comedy and get a pretty decent if not good film out with the name A-Team attached to it.

Could it have been better? Probably, but it wasn’t horrible and it surprised me with the fact that I didn’t really hate it and they allowed the characters to be the same as the ones that they were back on TV, and I for one really appreciated it. They didn’t go the complete comedy route and make it a stupid comedy when the original show was action and/or drama, they gave us exactly what the show was, just on the bigger screen.

However, it wasn’t groundbreaking and I wouldn’t rush out to see this movie. If you happen to see it on cable one day watch it. Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson were perfect for their parts of Hannibal, Face, Murdock and B.A. Baracus respectfully. Neeson is always great and I find that he’s been lending himself to a lot more mainstream action movies recently, and I won’t be complaining about that. Cooper was perfect for the roll of face as I couldn’t see anyone else playing the updated version of the character. Copley was hysterical as Murdock, shows that the guy has a range of rolls just waiting in him, especially after how serious District 9 was.  Jessica Biel was in this movie as well, always pretty face too look at, seemed to be much better in the acting realm than I’m normally accustomed too.

The story, a typical one for this movie, could be a little confusing at times, but with the Team wrecking havoc throughout the entire movie and that balances everything out.  I will say, I wasn’t a fan of the very beginning where the main characters are all introduced, as I felt it was tacked on; almost like an after thought…I’m not a fan of introductions being so flimsy. I don’t want my iconic characters simply meeting by chance. Overall, I can’t really complain too much, it was what it set out to be and that was a summer popcorn movie and I for one recommend it.