Right off the bat, the A-Team is over the top, absurd, cheesy and ridiculous. It is also one of the most accurate adaptations ever and the most fun I have had at the movies all summer. Frankly if you think the movie is too unrealistic and cheesy then you were obviously not a fan of the original show and you should watch your chair for those pesky sticks as they hurt more coming out than they do going in.

Like so many movie versions of shows or remakes nowadays, the A-Team takes the story all the way back to when the characters first meet each other and how they came to be fugitives from the law. The details of these meetings and adventures are convoluted and filled with double crosses, captures and escapes. The short of it is that they meet on an operation in Mexico and then eight years later they find themselves in Baghdad right as troops are being ordered home. A CIA agent named Lynch (Patrick Wilson) tells them about stolen American minting plates and they defy orders and a direct warning from Captain Sosa (Jessica Biel) to recover them.

Of course the mission is a frame up and the plates are stolen by a private military contractor called Black Forrest (read: Blackwater) and the A-Team are left holding the bag. Months go by and team leader Hannibal (Liam Neeson) is visited by Lynch in prison with information relating to the frame up and assistance in the A-Team’s escape.

What follows from there is just bat shit crazy. The plot is frankly a tangled mess and you could have a roadmap, a copy of the script and director Joe Carnahan sitting next to you explaining it and it would still be a bit hard to follow who is screwing who over. But when you are dealing with a movie based on a show that followed the exact same plot every episode for its entire run, a little complexity is a welcome addition. Story aside, the things that really make the movie shine are the performances, the crazy action and the absolute reverence for the show without going overboard into unbridled fan service.

I was a pretty big A-Team fan growing up and I was dubious about a movie until I heard about who was directing it and who was starring in it. While I don’t really like his endings all that much, I have really dug Joe Carnahan’s movies across the board and I felt pretty confident in his ability to bring out both the action and the humor and meld them into something really cool. I wasn’t wrong. Liam Neeson is as good a Hannibal as you could ever have without reanimating George Pappard and I think that if you did that his insatiable hunger for the flesh of the living would really get in the way of his acting.

Likewise, Bradley Cooper’s casting as Faceman was inspired. I can’t think of anyone else in Hollywood would could have handled the character better than Cooper outside of Dirk Benedict himself. I was a little nervous about Sharlto Copley stepping in as Murdock. Copley was incredible in District 9 but that was his first real acting job. It isn’t as if Murdock is some kind of high brow classic character or anything but he needed the right touch to work without being too over the top. It would have been really easy to cast someone to do an Ace Ventura era Jim Carrey (or a Yes Man era Jim Carrey for that matter) to really ham it up and just ruin the part but Copley plays Murdock just the way he needs to be played. He is funny and quirky and definitely crazy but he isn’t a bumbling clown such that any operation they try to pull off is foiled from the get go.

Of course the real question mark here was B.A. While I loved all the characters on the A-Team, Mr. T was the breakout star and everyone, especially the generation to which I belong, loved him. The role is iconic because Mr. T is iconic. If someone were to come along and try to do a Mr. T impression with the role I think it would have been disaster. Luckily, MMA fighter Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson never tries to channel Mr. T or do any kind of impression. He gives his take on the character and plays him his own way. Sure, there are plenty of similarities between the two B.A.s given that they are the same character but Jackson manages to get the spirit of the original B.A. without retreading and doing exactly the same thing Mr. T did.

Honestly that is kind of the thing across the board, none of the actors try to do impressions of the originals from the show but manage to invoke the feeling and spirit of the characters and performances while making the characters their own. Face is different but he feels like Face. I think remakes screw this up way too often and those movies are unsatisfying because no one wants to see pale impressions of other actors. A-Team really shines in this area and the whole cast has great chemistry and great ability.

When it comes to the action and set pieces, there is a ton of Lampshade hanging where the writers acknowledge and call attention to just how impossible, ridiculous and stupid what we are seeing is. I’ve read complaints about the manning the gun while the tank parachutes following a plane blowing up mid-air and how far fetched it is but honestly the sequence immediately following that is WAY more ridiculous and over the top. And the characters acknowledge this as it is happening so the audience can feel better that someone involved with the movie understands that yes this bullshit that is happening is completely impossible. This allows them to be free to really crank up the silly knob and pour it on.

There are a lot of little nods to the series as the movie progresses but the way that the respect for the original series really shows through is similar to the portrayal of the characters: it isn’t an exact copy but it feels right. The movie could have been a gritty Dark Knight like remake or it could have gone the Starsky and Hutch route and been a straight up parody but instead Carnahan opted for taking the sort of thing they would do on the show and then adding modern effects and a budget. This was the right choice.

Conclusion [9.0 out of 10]

Don’t let the less than enthusiastic box office deter you here. The A-Team is more fun and exciting than Iron Man 2 and at least 40% more ridiculous. If you were a fan of the show then you should go see the remake. If you weren’t a fan of the show but enjoy action packed silliness then you can give it a try. If you hated the show then you will probably hate this as it is pretty much everything the old show used to be only more so. The A-Team is great time at the theater and I can’t wait for the Blu-ray.