A-Team gets an F

Liam Neeson, I'm talking to you. What are you doing with your talent and career?

Last year it was Taken, a disappointingly idiotic and offensive piece of poor acting and storytelling, all wrapped up in a Yankee lovefest with an Irishman as its star. Now he has taken the rest of his art house and Oscar cred and jammed it into the dirt as he plays Col. Hannibal Smith, leader of a crack team of Army Rangers who are framed and go renegade in order to redeem themselves.

Haven't I seen this before? Yes. 487,000 times. This one places near the bottom of that long list but you pretty much knew that already, didn't you?

The rest of Smith's crew consists of three other ridiculous macho caricatures (as if any child of the ‘80s didn't know already). There's B.A. Baracus (Quinton Jackson), a guy with a Mohawk and an extreme dislike for air travel. I had an extreme dislike for how he kept being called ‘Barack.' Lieut. Templeton ‘Faceman' Peck (Bradley Cooper) is the charmer with the six-pack abs, killer dental work and all around personality of a bottle of fake tan. And then there's Murdock (Sharlto Copley), the brilliant pilot who can fly anything but is otherwise mentally unstable. Every gang of four guys needs a cuckoo in the nest, right? This guy is so loco that during electroshock treatment he shorts out the fuse, shakes off the buzz and says, “I think I felt something.”

I won't bore you with the story because either there wasn't much of one or I wasn't paying attention. This is the kind of movie where the plot points are punctuated with gunshots and rocket fire. There is plenty of each, but why was I so bored even in the first 10 minutes with such spectacular explosions? Oh yeah, there's no story for me to understand or care about.

The action was mildly entertaining and the sparse moments of male-centric humour did make me laugh. There were some choice lines, for sure. Does that mean that it was worth the $110 million (USD) to make this pointless piece of drivel? Of course not. They should have spent $1 million and given the rest to charity. The world would have been a better place and the movie likely would have been 110 times better.

The A-Team was produced in part by both Ridley and Tony Scott, two British brothers who have, in the past, made significant and important contributions to the world of film with artistic and popular pieces. This is neither. It is base and banal to the point of audience stupefaction. It's the cinematic equivalent of a meal consisting of processed cheese. I used to love it when a plan came together. Now I just wish the next plan to come along will involve a team that puts its skills to use for humankind like working towards peace in the Middle East.