- The A Team
- 'Not even Neeson's presence can make this a film to invest any emotion in.'
- »
I’ve got no objection to a big noisy action movie with a preposterous plot, lots of explosions and the IQ of a brain-damaged slug, but I do have a problem with a film that is this dull.
I never watched The A Team on television, so I have no nostalgic attachment to the exploits of Hannibal, Face, B.A. and Murdoch. It was a programme designed for the young and the undemanding, and that was then. This is now, and now means Liam Neeson as Hannibal, plus the bloke from District 9, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover and assorted romcoms), and someone we’ve never heard of as B.A.
In an interminable prologue, they meet, bond, pull off a secret operation in Baghdad, are framed, tried and banged up – just so that they can escape again and clear their names. I would be lying to you if I said that the plot was the key dynamic of the film; the narrative, such as it is, lurches around from one red herring to another, and no one much cares what’s happening, or why. Which is where the problems start, since if there is one key essential to any film, it is that you care what happens. In the helter skelter of things blowing up, improbable rescues, chases and punch ups (all edited by someone with attention deficit disorder), there is a complete absence of the human dimension to distinguish this from a comic book or a computer game.
Not even Neeson’s presence can make this a film to invest any emotion in. Quite what he thinks he is doing headlining a film this dumb is beyond my comprehension, but he has previous – with Taken, Clash of the Titans and the Narnia films. Maybe as he approaches 60, he feels it’s his last chance to strut his tough guy stuff. The rest of the team do their best to inject some humour and romance (Cooper’s ex-, Jessica Biel, is hot on their trail) into proceedings, but when they’re up against ridiculous set pieces like a tank parachuting out of the sky or hundreds of containers being tossed about, there’s not much they can do to help.
OK, so obviously this is a film aimed at a young audience for whom these considerations may not matter much. But when you consider that the film took half of what Karate Kid grossed in the USA, then maybe even the under 10s remained underwhelmed by such a thuddingly dull piece of cinema in which your pulses refuse to race.
4/10
Phil Raby
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