the a team

doo-do-doo do do do doo

I loved the a-team as a kid.

Really it was daft show. A group of American special forces who were convicted of "a crime they didn't commit" go around the US as hired guns, only not hired in the sense of being mercenaries. It was more along the lines of them saving the weak from criminals and thugs.

The episodes were extremely formulaic, picking on particularly bits and pieces and using them in most every episode. Some of the more famous things were BA's fear of flying and them drugging him to get him on planes and the fact that despite all the shooting of guns and explosions no one would ever be killed.

Then of course there was the fact that at some point the bad guys would capture and imprison the A Team, but they'd put them in a warehouse or garage with access to loads of stuff that they would use to create some sort of cool vehicle with improvised weapons that help them escape and/or bring victory.

I fully expected to hate this film.

My problem is that I didn't, but I also didn't really like it either.

Firstly, it's obviously updated. For example, in the original it was the Vietnam war, in this it's the recent war in Iraq. I didn't mind this too much.

But some of the same basic ideas are there.

In the original I remember it being very much an ensemble piece, with individual episodes focusing more on one or other of the characters. Here, most of the characters have sufficient time in the spotlight to give that feel.

Also, the basic character traits are there. Murdoch is a loony, but a genius pilot. Hannibal is the implacable tough-nut leader. Face is a babe magnet. B.A. is super strong.

But other things have been tweaked in ways that I wasn't entirely keen on.

As mentioned, the main idea of the original was that it involved saving the weak from the strong and the improvising of cool machines from spare parts after having been captured.

Well, the first part isn't there, because this actually focuses on the origin story - the imprisoned for "a crime they didn't commit bit", which I'm pretty sure they never showed in the original series. I think this was a mistake. What was cool about the A-Team was that they were already fugitives going round saving other people (thus proving they were actually good guys) where this is just about proving they were acting on orders.

Also the improvising of cool machines to escape has become putting together cool machines or weird ideas to achieve an objective. This was okay, but less good.

Which pretty much sums up my feeling on the entire thing - okay, but less good.

Oh, except for the sound - the sound mix was horrible. I actually had to put on the subtitles as I could barely make out what people were saying half he time.

And while it looked good there was an awful lot of CGI. While I've no issue with this fundamentally, it kinda feels against the basic spirit of the original show to be using CGI to achieve stunts.