10/17/2017

The A-Team (2010) - Carnahan and stars present a poorly made noise factory



+ Worst Poster of the Year

Two major stars (Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson), a foreign medium-level star (Sharlto Copley) and an MMA fighter (Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson) are apparently in the middle of nowhere, well-equipped with guns on this obviously photo-shopped poster for Joe Carnahan's The A-Team

Four dynamic US Army Ranger pals are the A-Team, who break out, when they are locked up, and take orders from a sneaky CIA-type to secure a money press from falling into the wrong hands.

This is convoluted into an incomprehensible story in The A-Team, served behind a demonstratively shallow and brainless plate of macho action, which is apparently supposed to succeed based on lots of noise and the tone set, which is one of permanent overgrown teenage male swagger. Any relation to the real world is almost non-existing, and no one in the cast distinguish themselves here, playing characters that seem a veritable parade of idiots. The four heroes often find themselves in scenes, where they are sweating and yelling profusely, while dubious CGI effects inform us that they are in great danger.
A couple of scenes are lightly amusing, and The A-Team is completely unpretentious, - but these are negligible mitigating circumstances, when the film is this bad. It is written by Brian Bloom (Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016, video game), Skip Woods (Swordfish (2001)) and co-writer-director Joe Carnahan (The Grey (2011)), based on the same-titled 1983-87 NBC TV-series.

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]



Watch a teaser for the film here

Cost: 100 mil. $ (110 mil. $ before tax credit)
Box office: 177.2 mil. $
= Big flop
[The A-Team premiered 3 June (Hollywood) and runs 119 minutes. Development began in the mid 1990s, and John Singleton was one point supposed to direct the film. Filming took place in Norway and in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, including in Vancouver, from September - December 2009. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release The Karate Kid, to a 25.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for another 2 weeks (#3; #5) and grossed 77.2 mil. $ (43.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 15.2 mil. $ (8.6 %) and France with 9.1 mil. $ (5.1 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1½/4 star review, equal to its rating here. The poor box office performance killed plans for a sequel. Neeson in 2012 called the film 'confusing'. The A-Team is rotten at 47 % with a 5.4/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The A-Team?

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