The A - TEAM

“The A-TEAM” (Liam Neeson & Bradley Cooper)

Never watched the TV series but I heard some decent things about this big screen version so I coughed up $3 & checked it out... To the three people that told me this was worth seeing? You each owe me a dollar.

I should just let it go at that – but just in case you’re one of those who didn’t think this would be something you’d care to see & you have a friend or two that told you it was good, I’ll go into more detail as to why it sucks so you won’t be taken in like I was.
All I remember about the series is George Peppard played a guy who smoked cigars & Mr. T played a guy with a Mohawk who pitied fools (Like those who watched TV shows about jerkholes who smoked cigars & wore Mohawks)
The big screen edition opens in Mexico with Liam Neeson as the cigar smoker (Col. Hannibal Smith) handcuffed to a chair in a barn being tortured. When the Mexican police officers come to the conclusion that their prisoner isn’t going to talk they decide to let their dogs eat him for lunch. Two Rottweiler’s come charging into the barn & disappear into the darkness behind the chair. They come out seconds later ‘handcuffed’ to each others’ collars. You don’t see how the Colonel performed this amazing feat in a matter of seconds – stopping two huge attack dogs & cuffing them together without getting bitten. They don’t show it because it was an impossible feat to accomplish – I rolled my eyes while the dozen or so people in the theatre laughed... I knew I was in with the wrong crowd.
The movie then spirals downward as they simply roll out one improbable stunt after another while numbing my mind with ‘sophomoronic’ dialogue and painfully unfunny punch(less) lines. To give you an example – Col. Smith, in all seriousness states, “General Morrison is not deceased – he was murdered.” No, this wasn’t meant to be funny, but it was the only line that made me smirk.
Want to know what else wasn’t funny? While showing a 3-D movie in an insane asylum, a jeep drives toward the screen – then in reality, the A-Team drive their jeep thru the wall of the asylum at the same time – the nut jobs are very impressed with the realistic 3-D effects. Of course, being sane, I found it to be just plain stupid – throw in the fact that the jeep is only slightly damaged & is able to back up & drive away & you understand why I used the word improbable to describe the stunts.
Shortly after the jeep scene, the military aircraft the A-Team has stolen is shot down & the boys find themselves falling from the sky in a tank that just happened to be equipped with a parachute. B.A. asks, “Are we flying a tank?” Hannibal responds, “Technically, we’re not flying.” B.A. yells, “But we fallin’, fool!” Again, the rest of the audience cracked up at this while I pondered whether or not I really needed to see how this mess ends. Oh, & B.A., I was surprised to learn, does not stand for Bad Actor.
Since this is an updated version if tired old material, the ‘plot’ concerns a group of Iraqi’s who have stolen some U.S. $100 plates so they can make their own counterfeit useless money. Clever, eh?
Bradley Cooper (playing someone called ‘Face’ – probably because he has so many Facebook friends) is wearing out the warm & fuzzy glow I had for him from ‘The Hangover’ & is quickly sliding back into the ‘hack’ zone.
I’ll give Shaltro Copley some credit for playing a completely different character from the dweeb he played in ‘District 9’ – Still, his Murdoch isn’t nearly as funny as he thought he was; most of his attempted comic lines fell flat but I’d blame that on the sh*tty material rather than the actor.
Jennifer Biel, who is nice looking, but not gorgeous, kept her business suit on throughout the film, so she added nothing to help ease this unpleasant experience. & Patrick Wilson as a smarmy C.I.A. agent was simply dull.
If the A-Team TV show was filled with bad dialogue, humorless jokes & dumb stunts, then these guys did a great job of copying that formula, but for me, I’ll be skipping ‘The A-Team 2: More Outlandish Stunts & Stupidity’.

Webster’s definition of a ‘sophomoronic’; someone who laughs at childish humor like that seen in the movie ‘The A-Team’...