"Why are we in a falling tank?!"
"Because the plane exploded!"
Feeling the need for some mindless entertainment, I wanted to watch something that would feature explosions, amusing lines, and preposterous situations. Since I've seen every Bond film, I figured that I might as well check out this one out instead - it's what The A-Team is famous for, right?
Plot? The plot is that three madmen and one raving lunatic happen to be the best at getting results when it comes to high risk missions. Betrayed on a covert operation, they're imprisoned. They break out, they try to clear their names, their plans come together - but they get imprisoned again. They bust out for a second time, credits roll. It's an origin story for the A-Team. B.A.'s fear of flying? Check. Why the hell is someone like Murdoch in the army in the first place? Check. Van? It's there - briefly. Impossible helicopter stunts? Sure. Escaping an exploding plane mid-flight, in a tank? Okay then!
You might be thinking disbelief needs to be suspended. Suspending disbelief isn't enough - you should probably nail it to the ceiling. This film makes a lot of the Bond films look sensible. But it's okay, really. The A-Team is a live action cartoon; the film is a live action cartoon with a huge budget. It's not supposed to be realistic. In fact, the places it doesn't work are when the film tries to get serious or go for character development.
Character development? What's this? We all know the characters, because they've been lampooned on the internet for over a decade now. We don't need character development. We don't want lots of drama. We don't need the last quarter of the film to be serious.
If I wanted serious, I wouldn't be watching this film!
The fact that a premise which is supposed to be fun goes the way of serious business in the final act is disappointing. It feels like the writers were trying to stick to a generic movie structure while their ideas dwindled - the clue is that one of the main characters stands around silently doing nothing during the climax of the film. Which character? The one which provides the humour. The film also focusses on the most boring of the main characters. It's also a shame the female character (character, singular, since the other women are not really characters) doesn't do much beyond chase the A-Team around and provide support when they need it at the end. Of course, my expectations on this front were so low that the film was an improvement.
These points are even more disappointing because the rest of the film works. The main characters are done well enough for what they are, the plot is an interesting excuse for stuff to explode, amusing dialogue gets said... So, do the idiotic action sequences and cartoony main characters make up for the boring, annoying, or serious bits? I certainly found it to be fun. It's an enjoyable film when it's doing the action thing, essentially trying really hard not to be art, but to be entertainment - and succeeding more often than it fails. Which is about enough, really.
"Technically we're not flying."
"I know! We're falling, fool!"