The A-Team Film wasn’t that bad…

August 15, 2010

Today I went to the cinema with my girlfriend. We were originally planning on seeing Inception, which looked like an awesome film. Unfortunately for us, we missed the screening we were planning on attending because I wanted to get a case for my camera (I didn’t end up getting one in the end, frustratingly), so instead we chose to see The A Team, since she likes that sort of thing and I was just happy to do something nice on my day off. So what did I think?

Well, ever since seeing the trailer for it a couple of months ago, I thought it was going to be awful. I thought it was going to be an awful Hollywood remake of an old, popular TV Show because almost everyone in the film industry has run out of new ideas these days (or at least has run out of ideas that will make money, anyway). Other titles that fill this specification include the absolutely appalling Thunderbirds film and Michael Bay’s Transformers (which I quite enjoyed). Most of these films are made to either relight interest in a dead franchise, or make kids interested in a dead franchise, presumably just so they can understand the apparently ‘pop’-cult references TV shows make about these old shows. Regardless, I was right and wrong.

I was right in the respect that it was one of those films that fits in the aforementioned category; it was a lame Hollywood adaptation of a traditional, classic TV Show that lots of people love and would probably hate to be abused in such a manner. However, I was wrong about it being awful. To be honest, it was actually quite enjoyable to watch. Ridiculous, but enjoyable. I most likely wouldn’t buy the DVD, but I’d probably watch it on TV if it was on at Christmas when I was at my grandparent’s house and had nothing else to do. The story was relatively easy to follow, the plot was pretty well structured, and by the end of it I did feel quite drawn into what was happening. The only thing that I didn’t like was how ridiculous aspects of it were (e.g., A tank being flown through the sky and everyone in it still being alive when it crashed into a lake), and how unconvincing the CGI was that achieved those ridiculous aspects, especially when the rest of the film was really good quality. I just feel that CGI dates films really quickly, and if it looked pretty unconvincing at release then it has no hope for the future. Other than that it was good.

However, the film got me thinking about something I’d been discussing with a work friend recently; when making this film, were the actors not really depressed? I mean, if I were in something like this, I’d be very aware throughout the entire process of making the film that my performance, no matter how hard I tried, was going to be compared to the friggen’ A-Team, and that most people would probably leave the cinema grumbling because of it— even if I put my heart and soul into doing the best I could in order to please those people. I mean, the guy playing B.A. Baracus surely would have been constantly aware that he was having to try and put on as good of a show as the legendary, internationally well-loved, Mr. T, no? That is one pretty high bar to jump over. I imagine that most of the lead cast were probably suicidal/on sedatives by the time the film premiered.

All in all, it was worth watching and if you want to go to the cinema and there’s nothing else on then it’s worth a go. But I wouldn’t choose it over any of this summer’s Blockbusters, such as Toy Story 3.

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