Do you remember when going to the movies was fun?  There was a time when movies did not all strive to be the grittiest most realistic depiction of violence on the block.  There was a time when action movies were not somber affairs like the Bourne movies or boring lessons in bad history like Ridley Scott’s recent Robin Hood.  They used to just be fun.  The type of movie where you could go, eat some popcorn, have some laughs, and watch the good guys kick the bad guy’s ass.  I’m not saying the cinematic landscape of action movies is a barren and dull wasteland.  For every dog shit action movie like Gamer, there’s a thoroughly enjoyable one like Crank (both films were actually made by the same people, which should say something about the wildly uneven quality of the genre these days).  There is good work being done with movies that deconstruct the genre like Shoot ‘Em Up or Kick-Ass and thanks to The Dark Knight and the output of Marvel Studios the comic book movie has been taken to new depths, but what has happened to the good old-fashioned popcorn movie?

Well good news.  Joe Carnahan remembers fun action movies.  So he decided to make one.  The Sacramento-area film-maker whose previous credits include the dark comedy Blood, Guts, Bullets, and Octane, the gritty cop drama Narc, and the shoot-em-up free-for-all Smokin’ Aces has been tasked with bringing TV’s The A-Team to the big screen.

So now it’s confession time.  I have never seen a single episode of The A-Team.  I have some passing knowledge of the plot and Mr. T’s general attitude regarding fools but I have still never seen an episode (if it counts for anything I did have an acting teacher who played a Nazi in one episode…).  So I went in to this movie free of expectation.  I have no idea how this film would stack up to a hard-core fan of the TV series.  Someone who has seen every episode and bought that van-shaped DVD complete series box set (which, by the way, is pretty cool package design) might not have the same opinion of this movie that I do.  All I know is without a shred of background I went into the movie theater and had a good time.

The film follows the four members of an Army Rangers “A-Team.”  Liam Neeson plays Col. Hannibal Smith, the cigar-smoking man with the plan.  Bradley Cooper plays Lt. “Faceman” Peck, the smooth-talking lothario of the group.  Ultimate fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson plays Mr. T’s iconic role of Sgt. Bosco “B.A.” Baracus with all the subtlety expected of a man named Rampage.  The man who steals the movie however is South African actor Sharlto Copley, fresh off the success of last year’s District 9 (in which he was amazing).  He plays Capt. H.M. Murdock, a pilot who is (or at least appears to be) completely off his rocker.  With an accent that is constantly shifting between the American South and Copley’s native South Africa and a twitchy sort of madcap energy, Murdock is the character who is most memorable from the movie.  All four actors, however, have good chemistry with one another and really sell the audience on the idea that these guys are a cohesive team.

After an extended prologue that more-or-less establishes how the team came together, the machinery of the plot kicks in.  The team is framed for a crime they didn’t commit and find themselves dishonorably discharged and imprisoned.  However a shifty CIA operative who may or may not be named Lynch (played by Patrick Wilson from Watchmen and Angels in America who seems to be having a lot of fun) knows the team is innocent and wants the real perpetrators tracked down.  After a daring prison escape… actually four daring prison escapes, the team sets out to find Pike (Brian Bloom), a private mercenary from a company called Black Forrest (subtle, no?) who set up the team to take the fall.  Meanwhile Jessica Biel plays Capt. Sosa from the Department of Defense who is trying to track down the fugitives and Pike and recover the treasury plates that were stolen while staying off of Lynch’s radar.

Follow all that?  It doesn’t really matter because this film is not one where every little detail of the plot is critical to one’s enjoyment of the movie as a whole.  What you need to know is who the good guys are, who the bad guys are, and how the good guys are going to get the bad guys.  Oh, and also just how cool will it be along the way.  Luckily Carnahan knows a thing or two about cool…

The film’s action scenes are just awesome.  From an early helicopter chase to the above-pictured flying tank (or more accurately falling tank) this film is most definitely not suffering from a shortage of well-crafted action sequences.  Most importantly, and this is a word I keep coming back to, the action scenes are fun.  You eat your popcorn watch the screen and wonder just what they hell will happen next and you enjoy every second of it.

In tone this film is very similar to another film from earlier this year called The Losers.  It is also about a team of guys on the wrong side of the law looking to get justice and much like The A-Team it is loaded with humor.  But The A-Team comes off as a much more high-budget and polished version of the same type of movie (both films even set their climaxes in the Port of Los Angeles).  Either way I see this as very much a positive trend.  Fun is headed back to the multiplex.  This is not a great film that will win any awards.  Nor should it.  But it is a damn good time at the movies and it will sell a lot of popcorn…

Well that’s it for this week.  I was serious last week about trying maybe to do two reviews a day if enough big films opened up, but I’m headed to Los Angeles over the weekend so that’s a no-go for today.  Also in the spirit of shameless self-promotion I figured I’d give anyone who cares a heads up that my [much shorter] Facebook reviews of just about every movie I see can be read by following me here.  Toy Story 3, Jonah Hex, and Cyrus all open next week so hopefully I can review one or more of those.  I’m thinking the later two since we all know already that everything Pixar touches is pure gold…  Until then…