The A-Team

I've been looking forward to The A-Team and I finally got to see it today. I'd heard the reviews were bad. As I walked out of the theater, I was wondering what negative things could have been said about it. So when I got home, I googled "A-Team reviews" and found a scathing one by Eric D. Snider.

Eric complained that The A-Team movie was cheesy, preposterous, full of catch phrases and corny entertainment just like the TV show. What did he expect? If it weren't all of the above then it would need a different title. He even objected to the use of "I love it when a plan comes together." Give me a break. That is the signature phrase of the A-Team and, again, without it the movie would have to be called something else.

And preposterous? Well, of course. During the helicopter escape at the beginning of the movie, I thought they were going to reenact one of my favorite scenes from the TV show. The TV scene went something like this: The team was being chased by bad guys, Murdock was doing some fabulous flying and he led the bad guys into a mountain. Murdock pulled his helicopter up at the last second. The bad guys were no match and crashed head on into the mountain. Their helicopter burst into flames broke apart and fell in pieces down the side of the mountain. At the bottom, the bad guys scrambled from the wreckage before it exploded. Vintage Roadrunner violence where no one gets hurt. Preposterous? Yes. A-Team? Yes. Fun and entertaining? Oh, yes. The movie scene wasn't exactly like that. Murdock flew the heck out of the helicopter but the bad guys got shot down when they followed him over the border of Mexico into the United States. We never saw those bad guys again so maybe they weren't as lucky as their TV counterparts.

The A-Team are superheroes in regular clothes. They don't wear capes or drive bat mobiles and they can't spin a web. But they can do lots of other preposterous things that are just as entertaining.

Beth & I laughed a lot and had a good time. So did the soldiers who were sitting in front of us. Before the movie started, they were talking loudly and one of them said he was sure he wouldn't like "this stupid movie" and someone was going to pay him back for the price of his ticket. Once the movie started, we didn't hear another peep out of those boys besides laughter. When the movie was over and they exited the theater, they were in much better moods than when they'd entered. I'd say that is a successful movie.