There are those of us who spent many evenings watching the A Team tv series during our childhood. The rest of you watched it during your older years or have never watched it at all or have managed to catch the series on it’s many reruns. For those of us who watched it as kids and enjoyed it a lot, it is a reminder of when things were much simpler. It’s nostalgic and it’s cheesy and it was a lot of fun. It was an innocent time for us and the series reflected that. Is it that way in the new century? Heck no and most of the movies made now reflect our times.

Like with everything good from the 60s,70s & 80s they did a remake / reboot of the A Team and instead of a tv series its the turn of the big screen to see the 4 dudes that make up the team of renegade mercenaries for hire who are running away from the US military & the law, chased for a crime that they were framed for. Released in 2010 and directed by Joe Carnahan and produced by Stephen J. Cannelland Ridley and Tony Scott, the movie stars Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith, Bradley Cooper as Templeton “Face” Peck, Quinton Jackson as Bosco Albert Baracus and Sharlto Copely as H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdoch. The sexy Jessica Biel also co-stars.

Before watching this film I was wondering how the South African actor Copely would fair as Murdoch – I mean no one and no one can replace Dwight Schultz as the original! Turns out that although he doesn’t outshine the Murdoch we knew, Copely’s performances was the saving grace for this movie. The movie turns out to be a noisy mess, rushing the origins of how the special ops team came to be! Was that really necessary? The whole plot looked ludicrous to me and I’m still trying to understand what the fuck was all that blowing up was about. The problem with the film is that they tried to force about a season worth of stuff into a 2 hour movie. It won’t work.

Casting – I don’t think Liam Neeson, wonderful actor that is, was able to capture the mix of leadership, ingenious plan creator and fun loving deviant that George Peppard as Hannibal was. Jackson is probably a better actor than Mr T (who isn’t?) but you decide – who is more memorable as B. A.? I also don’t think that Copper did a good job either as Face, lacking the charisma of Mr. Dirk Benedict. That leaves us with Copely who, like I said, did a fine job and he was funny. I prefer Dwight Schultz but you can’t find fault with Mr. Copely. And we also have the lovely Ms Jessica here. I think she was just ok but any excuse to have her on the screen :D

Here is a case where the original is actually much better. No one can doubt that. 5 outta 10!