My Blog! My Blog!

The above quotation is, in my opinion, one of the better lines from "The A-Team", which I had the chance to see with esrblog and a Pittsburgh-area friend.

esrblog complained that the speakers were turned up to such a high volume that the distortion was making it hard for him to understand the dialogue. I too had a hard time making out a lot of the dialogue, but it hardly mattered, because the uberplot was simple. A band of charismatic good guys, who are extremely capable but also extremely non-conformist and good at violence, get in trouble with the authorities and need to apply their skills both to save the day and their own skins. On the other hand, some of the machinations they engage in are amusingly Rube-Goldberg-ish, and result in lots of explosions. (esrblog liked that part, naturally.)

Liam Neeson does a great job as Colonel Hannibal Smith, the leader of the team. The rest of the actors cast as A-Team members turn in adequate but low-key performances except for Sharlto Copley as Murdock, the mad helicopter pilot, who nearly manages to upstage Neeson. Quinton Jackson, who plays the role Mr. T played in the TV series, is if anything more low-key than the others--not what I'd consider an appropriate successor to Mr. T.

If you don't like movies with violence or loud explosions, "The A-Team" may not be for you. Nor is it a potential classic. It's a typical summer popcorn movie, arguably not as good as the TV series that spawned it. If you're picky about how you spend your movie-going dollars, wait for the video release.