'The A-Team' review

Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson (Credit: Doug Curran/20th Century Fox)

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After Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) and his team of ace Special Forces soldiers (Bradley Cooper, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Sharlto Copley) are falsely convicted of a crime, they break out of incarceration to expose the misdeeds of a shady CIA operative (Patrick Wilson), while being pursued by a smokin’ hot military officer (Jessica Biel). Basically it’s all an excuse to blow a lot of crap up.

The buzz: Everybody loves the ‘80s! From satires like “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “MacGruber” to remakes like “A-Team’s” box office competition “The Karate Kid,” the decade has never been so hot. Unfortunately, the movies are so not. Can “A-Team” buck the trend and rediscover the fun in a small screen concept the way J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” did last summer?

The verdict: “The A-Team” isn’t an action movie, it’s an act of hostility. This witless, soulless concoction pummels its audience into submission with a non-stop assault of incoherent explosions, fights and forced camaraderie. The actors are little more than action figures—plastic, free of personality and entirely unable to create even a semblance of chemistry in the midst of all the supposedly badass action. You’ve got to hand it to hack director Joe Carnahan (“Smokin’ Aces”)—it’s some kind of achievement to deliver a film that makes Michael Bay seem subtle and sophisticated by comparison. With no characters to care about, no plot worth following and no effort to modulate the action scenes so they actually matter, everything just piles up on screen like a two-hour car wreck.

Did you know? Carnahan convinced ex-smoker Neeson that he needed to chomp on and light real cigars for the role of Hannibal. Yes, it’s a perfectly understandable attempt to preserve the movie’s flawless credibility.

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