Before I review the A-Team, I want to discuss a certain matter. I was looking at the other movie websites, and there seems to be a general consensus that this has been a lackluster, underwhelming 2010 summer movie season. The summer movie season was very disappointing. It started out with Iron Man 2 which opened on May 7^th. It was not a blow away movie, but was a good sequel nonetheless. The weekend beginning with May 14^th gave us Robin Hood directed by Ridley Scott promising to give us a different take on the Sherwood Forest character. There had been many variations on Robin Hood done anyway, so the public was not o interested. I decided to skip that weekend. The weekend of May 14^th offered us Shrek Forever After, and MacGruber. I saw Shrek which was a decent yet not great movie, and thanks to 3D, Shrek was able to maintain the number one spot for three consecutive weeks. MacGruber was dead on arrival. The weekend of May 28^th offered Sex and the City which opened on Thursday the 27^th, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. There was nothing promising about both of these movies so I skipped that weekend. The weekend of June the 4^th offered four movies including   Splice, Marmaduke, Get Him to The Greek, and Killers. None of these movies looked like they were going to impress so I skipped that weekend.  All hopes pointed to the A-Team opening on June 11^th to turn the summer movie season around.

I have to say I enjoyed the A-team. It was a fun, mindless action popcorn flick. The A-team was based on the 80s television series which ran from 1983-1987. You can order the “The A-Team Complete Series Limited Edition Box Set” through the PWInsider Store. In this film version Hannibal is played by Liam Neeson, Face is played by Bradley Cooper, Quentin “Rampage” Jackson as BA Baracus, and Sharlto Coply as HM Murdock.

The movie dealt with the origin of The A-Team as they set out to prove their innocence. There were twists and turns in this movie. It also masterfully blended comedy with action. Yes the action scenes were mindless, but fun nonetheless.  I really enjoyed the Sharlto Copley’s portrayal of HM Murdoch as he was hilariously on point. Sharlto Copley provided most of the comic relief in this film. This leads to the problem with this film, take out the Murdoch factor, and the A-Team is just another movie with no plot. It would have been action scenes for the sake of action scenes. Also, although the action scenes were great, they were rather unrealistic so one would have to check your intelligence at the door. These are the recipes of a forgettable movie in the vain of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Despite the flaws I enjoyed The A-Team. I enjoyed suspending my disbelief for a time, something that I was unable to do since Iron Man 2. I think the other casting were good. Bradley Cooper, and Quentin Rampage Jackson were good in their roles, and Liam Neeson was a commanding presence as Hannibal. I also like how they dealt with the relationships between the four main characters. In the end, I recommend The A-Team.

Now the title of this review is “I Love it when A Plan comes together “or Did It” The reason for the was because The A- Team was slated to win the number one spot this weekend; however, opening the same weekend of the A-Team was The Karate Kid, a remake of the 1984 film of the same name, starring Jaden Smith and Jacky Chang. I was stunned when I read the headlines on Saturday afternoon that the Karate Kid beat the A-Team on Friday, opening day. When I went to see the A-Team on Saturday, the lines were big for the Karate Kid. They even had two theaters playing The Karate Kid at the same time to deal with the overflow. In the end, Karate Kid destroyed A-Teams plan by winning the box office weekend 56 million to 26 million dollars. What were the factors that lead to this victory for the Karate Kid? It could be several. The first factor could be Jaden Smith. He is the son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. The first time I saw Jaden Smith was in the dreadful ,“ The Day the Earth Stood Still” 2008 remake. I could not stand the character Jaden played. The character Jacob Benson was an obnoxious little brat, and I wanted to give the kid a smackdown; although, I don’t condone violence on kids. The movie left a bad taste in my mouth so I have to get over that bad taste before I see Jaden in a role again. The second factor could be The Karate Kid being a family movie. There has not been a good family movie this summer since Shrek, Marmaduke both failed to impress. The third factor of this movie could be the Martial Arts factor. Now it is obvious that this movie is being marketed to kids, with the purpose of increasing the sizes of the martial arts schools during this down academy. Before the movie trailers there were even two martial arts schools being advertised. There is a main problem which is the kids are being given taught major misconception. That being the character Jaden Smith plays moves to China. He is not learning Karate, he is learning Kung Fu. Karate is a Japanese style Martial Art as Kung Fu is a Chinese style Martial art. So if you are going to market to the kids, then market to them correctly. If that’s the case the movie should have been titled the Kung Fu Kid, not the Karate Kid. I for one am not going to see the Karate Kid as I am going to wait for it to come out on DVD, the premium cable channels, or whichever comes first; although I am very impressed that it made 56 million this past weekend, the second highest after Iron Man2 giving the summer season a small boost. We will see how the Karate Kids holds up against Toy Story 3 coming out on June 18^th. 

The question is where does this leave The A-Team? I was hoping for a sequel because it did enjoy it, but it all depends on how it does in the long run. If you have any comments, e-mail me at espevi2003@hotmail.com.

A-Team movie grade = B