Elemental Movies

The A Team Movie Review

The American forces are serving in Iraq when they get news of a shipment of money and the plates used to print it being moved. It falls on a group of 4 solders to go and try to stop the shipment and bring it back to safety. Unfortunately the task goes wrong and the soldiers are arrested for a crime they did not commit.

The men, Hannibal, Face, Murdoch and B A are left with the task of escaping to clear their name. This is not going to be an easy task though as they are all heavily guarded and in separate prisons. The men do escape though and are soon chasing the real criminals but can they evade the law for long enough to clear their names or are they destined to spend their lives on the run?

I have fond memories of the old A Team series which me and my brother used to sit and watch when we were younger ad so to does my Hubby. As a result we were both very keen on seeing this film. I have read mixed reviews on the film so I did start to watch with a very open mind and luckily I was not disappointed by it. What we need to remember when watching this film is that it is a prequel to the series ad shows how the men came to be the A Team and living on the run, it is not trying to be like the series and I think this is what disappointed a lot of viewers. One let down I had was that I spent the whole duration of the film listening for the original theme music and we only got 2 very short snippets of it was not enough for me and hubby.

The acting was good and for me the lead role was Hannibal Smith who was played by Liam Neeson, he did a great job in the role and I enjoyed watching him. He seemed very at ease and seemed to deliver his lines and play the action scenes with ease and he looked very comfortable. I did not however like him when he had that stupid massive cigar n his mouth! He worked well with the other three lead actors and they included, Bradley Cooper as Face, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson as BA and Sharlto Copley as Murdoch. They all seemed to gel together well and bounced off each other with their lines. At one point I did have an issue with BA as he took on a very unnatural compassion and did not have his trademark hair but this was only short lived and for the remainder of the film he gave a good attempt at the iconic role.

We had a good support cast which included the likes of Jessica Beil, Patrick Wilson, Gerald McRaney and Brain Bloom, they were all mainly military men and woman and all came across very well and believable in their roles.

There were loads of special effects used in this film and they were all superb. I loved all of the action and thought it was all filmed excellently. The armed fighting and the gun fights all looked realistic and there was only one time in the film when I noticed bad backdrops and this was towards the end of the film when they were at the dock yard. Apart from these few weak scenes all of the other effects were a pleasure to watch and made the film very exciting and action packed. There was one part which nearly had hubby crying and this was to do with the van which belonged to BA. It was devastating to see what happened to it and I think it would have been better to keep the vehicle and give it a lot more exposure as it is one of the main things which is associated with the A Team.

Them music was good and in keeping with the action and tension of the film. I did enjoy all of the tracks but would have liked to have heard the original theme used more.

There was a good balance of action and humour in the film and it worked well, I think the slight humour made the characters come across as more normal and there was as great ease with the 4 lead character which helped the one liners bounce from them all. There was one point when both me and hubby laughed out loud but this was not supposed to be funny, the part was when they were falling out of the sky in a tank and firing the gun to steer and manoeuvre the falling tank, this was so unbelievable it was hilarious and this had me and hubby in stitches so do look out for this scenes when watching.

This is a film only review so there are no DVD extras as the DVD has not been released yet. The running time of the film is 117 minutes which I thought was a good length with the story moving at a good fast pace from start to finish. The rate is a 12A but I think boys around the age of 10 will love this film. My boys will certainly be watching it when the DVD comes out as they are fans of the A Team.

This film definitely deserves a good strong 4 stars. I would have liked to have given it 5 stars but have had to drop one for the missing theme music and the unbelievable scenes in the tank. Definitely one for all fans of the original series to watch as long as they remember it is not trying to be like the series, this is a films showing how the A team came to be.

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Video Rating: 5 / 5