The A-Team: Critic Reviews

I pity the fool that takes this movie too seriously.

It's trash so compacted it glows.

Nothing - not the characters, not their stories and certainly not their violence - is meant to register deeply. Their words and worlds are disposable; it's no wonder they fade so fast.

The A-Team's cocktail of convoluted scheming, smirking one-liners, and unabashed mayhem is unsurprisingly well-suited to its demands. But it's still junk. Surely we've moved on?

Despite a talented cast, this nearly two-hour inane frenzy of action and violence is rarely more than bloated and boring.

A thoroughly unnecessary but nonetheless satisfying adaptation of the cheeseball 1980s TV series.

This is a movie that could have gotten away with making only a little bit of sense had it more superpowers or superstars. Neeson doesn't quite count since he's made the mistake of giving a performance.

Both in name and spirit, The A-Team drags the Eighties into the 21st century, and you might be surprised to find -- if only briefly -- that you've missed them just a little.

If you're a fan of causeless effects, consequence-free causes and digital Dada, let the silly times roll.

This team may have given itself an A, but viewers likely won't be so generous.

The A-Team is so busy trying to connect with the audience's hearts, minds and wallets that it never quite connects with itself.

How it is interesting to watch a movie in which the "action" is essentially colorful abstractions? Isn't it more satisfying if you know where everyone is, and what they're doing, and how they're doing it in real time?

So, what do we have here? We have a big, bombastic, violent variation on the original theme of rocket launchers and machine guns and wisecracks.

"Sex and the City 2 for dudes"? "A Bourne film with frontal-lobe damage"? Pithy descriptions don't come easy after a brain-fragmenting experience like this movie version of the unaccountably popular '70s TV show.

The A-Team is really no better or worse than a whole bunch of other steroid studio-built extravaganzas, but the cumulative effect of these stunts-aplenty window-crashing-fireball-exploding-freeway-chasing-rocket-launching shoot-outs is numbing.

Excuse me, I need to sit down, catch my breath and extinguish my singed eyebrows.

The toss-away jokes? Who cares? The idea that B.A. Baracus becomes a peacenik in the middle of the film? Who cares? The ending's complete lack of resolution? Who cares?

It's temping to say that you're better off not thinking about the plot and how tenuously it all holds together. The truth is, you're better off not thinking at all.

Frankly, a little less budgeting for visual effects -- in exchange for more physicality and sharper character interplay -- would have improved matters, but the pic still works moderately well as the equivalent of a mindless B-movie.

It couldn't have been easy making a movie with less plot, character development and dramatic credibility than an episode of a campy '80s TV series.

No, the plan doesn't completely "come together." But this A-Team is close enough for government work.

I pity the fool who fails to share the popcorn.

With a healthy dose of smirking adolescent attitude The A-Team plays as a solid action film.

To the old box-office maxim that trite makes right, a fresh corollary must be attached: Chaos is the new order, and ugly the new beautiful.

The A-Team is reasonably good fun. If you're a 12-year-old boy riding an intense Cherry Pepsi buzz and totally devoted to destroying some brain cells, that is.