The A-Team: There Is No Plan B

Finally! A fresh new director in Hollywood: Joe Carnahan. Other than the little-acclaimed Smokin' Aces, this is truly a director with no sizable track record directing a movie that has what it takes to compete in the box office. In fact, compared to the average action-flick, I enjoyed A-Team quite a bit. Why? It was funny, action packed, well characterized, and all-in-all, entertaining. Sure, it might not have had the story value of Dark Knight, or the graphics of Transformers, but this was a genuine action movie. huzzah for Carnahan.

I have very few complaints about this movie, actually. The story was poor and the dialogue was strained at times, but it had some interesting twists and funny lines... enough of them to make me forgive Carnahan completely.

One of my complaints? Liam Neeson. in 2008's wonderful french film Taken, he was looking just a little to old to play the action-type, but he was supposed to be a late-middle-aged father, so I overlooked it. by 2010, he looks very much too old. Sorry, Neeson, everybody has his day. yours ended years ago.

I was, however, very happy with Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. While it's getting more and more common for professional wrestlers to try to enter the film industry, it's getting more and more rare to find one that's actually a decent actor. While Jackson might not be any Morgan Freeman, he's certainly promising, and I hope to see him in future rolls. perhaps an A-Team sequel? You can count on it.

Action movies have a bad rep as being empty and pointless. while this is usually true, sometimes there's a movie that's just good and outrageous enough to be forgiven. A-Team is one of those movies. Maybe it's a little too over-the-top, but fortunately for us, "overkill is underrated."

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Jerry Bruckheimer. A successful, if modest, movie producer. Armageddon, Remember The Titans, Perl Harbor... BAM. Pirates of the Caribbean. Jerry Bruckheimer proved that Disney still has what it takes to make a good, successful movie. Based of a theme park attraction, none the less. And then... a TV producer? The fear of every industry professional: a career down the television drain. Sure, he had a few movies (notably Deja Vu and G-Force) since his big break, but what happened to our much loved Hollywood hero? BAM. Prince of Persia. but wait, this isn't the Bruckheimer we loved. Sure, it had action, sure it had characters, but where was the spirit? Unfortunately, Disney doesn't still have what it takes.

I'll start off by saying that the action and acrobatics of this movie were very good. And I don't mean, "there was explosions and blood," I mean the action was entertaining, thrilling, and put to good use. Actually, this movie was surprisingly blood-free.

That said, this movie was rather stereotypical and stale. not good for an action movie. The characters were completely stock, seldom lovable, and never clever or witty. strike two. While I understand how it would be difficult to create a movie off of a very old video game, the story was terrible. And I don't just mean that it was a stupid concept, I just mean that it was poorly executed and at times actually boring. And while the ending was great, I'm afraid that's strike three.

Lets go back to the characters: bluntly, this movie had some of the worst, most un-original characters I have ever seen. Typical of Disney, I know, but still, I would have expected more. Pirates of the Caribbean--while some will say was overly complicated, or to stupid--had excellent characters and an interesting story line. As I said, Disney's fallen a long way.

Some of the characters were interesting, don't get me wrong. For example, the snake trainer had a little bit of the "creepy, deformed, and dangerous" edge that many PotC characters had. Unfortunately, characters had little to nothing to do with how the movie played out. Characters were based on stereotypes: the haughty princess, the rash young prince, the greedy moneymaker, the knife thrower--we've seen these all before. As if that wasn't bad enough, the characters in the movie were completely static. sure, the princess overcame her initial detestation of the prince, but her character remained the same. and then, at the end.... back to where we started.

The story was a little lacking as well. I mean, sure, they had to adapt it from a video game, but it was still not a very good story. The ending, however, was very nice. The one thing that doesn't make sense... supposedly when the dagger is used while stabbed into the sand, it incurs the wrath of the gods. that's all very nice, but when the gods start destroying the earth, he just goes back in time to before the earth began to be destroyed. Did nobody think of that? Just a little, well... stupid. agreed?

But in the spirit of summer blockbuster action flicks, this wasn't a terrible movie. It had action, romance........ well that's about all it had, actually. but what more could you ask for? this is summer, the time for cheesy, irresponsible, knock-off action movies. As serious movie goers around the world shake their heads, the more "in it for the show" moviegoers will enjoy this movie and most likely find it entertaining. Is it the next Pirates of the Caribbean? not at all. The next GI Joe? almost. ladies and gentlemen, welcome the next Eragon.