The A-Team

When the cast of The A-Team was announced, most people were uncertain whether or not the actors could do justice to the iconic roles that made the original TV series such a beloved favourite of so many. Well, let The Incredible Suit assure you: the cast is the least of this film's problems.

 

Hannibal, Face, BA and Murdoch might have been sent to a military prison for a crime they didn't commit, but the movie should be firmly incarcerated in celluloid Sing Sing for any of the following felonies:

• Being TWO HOURS long
• Beginning with an unnecessary origin story which depends on insane coincidence and requires a titanic suspension of disbelief, not to mention the fact that it takes about half an hour to do what the TV series opening did in TWENTY-TWO SECONDS
• Throwing in a rubbish visual gag nicked from Raiders Of The Lost Ark
• Using a woefully unfunny catchphrase ("Alpha Mike Foxtrot") twice in the first reel and then never again
• Naming a minor character "Carnahan" (The film was directed by Joe Carnahan. DO YOU SEE?)
• Having the team still working for the military when they're supposed to be a bunch of freelancers
• Pitting four separate groups of people against each other, thereby making the whole exercise more complicated than necessary
• Throwing in a twist you can see coming from the hot dog stand
• Plunging a bling-free BA into an existential crisis for most of the second act
• Giving Hannibal only one disguise, which involves dyeing his hair
• Not using the original series' theme nearly enough
• Finishing with a painfully awkward post-credits sequence which will mean nothing to anyone under 30

I had to stop there because I was depressing myself. Even the staff of the Empire Leicester Square couldn't be bothered:

In conclusion:

If you want to see a cheesy, fun TV series made into a cheesy, fun film, watch Charlie's Angels.

If you want to see a cheesy, fun TV series made into a brilliant, fun film, watch Star Trek.

If you want to see a cheesy, fun TV series made into a shouty, incomprehensible mess that removes all the fun things you remember from the original and replaces them with bewildering plotting and slapdash direction, watch The A-Team. And then question your own sanity.

The Incredible Suit does not love it when a blockbuster adaptation of an old TV favourite fails to come together.

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Inception

I could tell you what I thought about Inception, but I don't think you want me to spoil anything before you go and see it for yourself. Which, obviously, you would be absolutely Crackers Patel not to do. So instead, here are some thoughts about a piece of promotional material I was given when I went to see it:

It looks absolutely beautiful; it's expensively glossy and the colour palette is gorgeous.

But it's not just about looks. It's also substantial and weighty, thanks to the way it folds in on itself. As you delve into its inner layers, it expands perfectly to reveal goggle-boggling images, a plot which reads like Dreamscape plus The Matrix but infinitely better than both of those films, and a bunch of people in some absolutely Incredible Suits.

Inside are some amazing actors. Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't look like he's holding in a window-shattering fart for once, Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks dashing but a bit silly with a massive shooter and there are too few shots of Tom Hardy and Michael Caine.

If you press your ear to it very hard you can hear Hans Zimmer having the time of his life inside a terrifying nightmare.

I can't describe the final page to you. It's the perfect way to finish but you need to see it for yourself to truly appreciate it.

It's not flawless; there are some parts of it that I need to look at again to work out whether or not they make any sense. Also from end to end it's about 62cm long, and if I'm being honest it could do with being about thirteen percent shorter.

Having said that, as promotional material goes, it is without doubt THE BEST I'VE SEEN THIS YEAR. Especially in comparison to certain others.

You can read what you like into any of the above.

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Jessica Biel In The A-Team Causes Underpant Trauma

More new photos have been released from The A-Team, which I'm beginning to feel like I've already seen every single frame of before it's anywhere near being released.

This is my favourite so far:

I think it's fair to say that if I found myself staring down the barrel of a gun wielded by Jessica Biel in a short, midnight blue PVC raincoat, I would probably crap out an Uzi too.

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The Expendables & The A-Team: No Sissies Allowed

The Expendables

Global testosterone levels were reported to be dangerously depleted over the weekend when it was discovered that almost every last sweaty drop of the stuff had been crammed into the new trailer for The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone's latest attempt to convince the world that he's not some kind of sissy.



In case you couldn't quite make out what Stallone was saying in that trailer, here's a few snippets of his soon-to-be-classic dialogue:

"Rurrrnurrrr Muurrrrrrnnuurr."
"Nnnnmm. Rrrr. Rrrnnnmm."
"Rrrrrrmmmrrrrnnn."
"MMNNRRNNNRRRR!!!"

You'll note the trailer advertises its stars using only their surnames, because that's the manliest way you can possibly do it. After all, Jet, Mickey, Dolph, Steve, Bruce, Randy, Jason, Arnold and Sylvester just sounds like some kind of gay porn cabaret.

The A-Team

And then, summoning the very last reserves of macho juice and piddling them into another two-and-a-half minute clipgasm, came these guys:



"This court is rendering guilty verdicts for this Alpha unit... OR A-TEAM"
"I'm BA... you gonna B unconscious"
"Good morning!"
"It's payback time"

Anyone else think this might work better as a silent film?

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The A Team: Some Kind Of Trailer

This shy, retiring chap, you might realise by now, is Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson. He’s here for two reasons: 1) He plays BA Baracus in The A-Team, which is what it is that this post is about it is, and 2) so many people came to The Incredible Suit searching for him last time I mentioned him that I should probably talk about him every day.

I can’t believe how often I find myself writing about The A-Team. Every fibre of my suit knows that it’s going to be like a third Charlie’s Angels movie with dangly bits. But somehow I find myself poring over photos, watching the new trailer and waiting eagerly for a poster like some pathetic deskbound geek with no friends or life to speak of… oh.

Anyway as it happens I’d be happy if it follows the tone of the first Charlie’s Angels, which I actually like actually, and I’m actually not ashamed to say it either actually. If The A-Team goes for the same sense of fun that is enhanced by having half a bottle of wine inside you (by which I mean half the contents of a bottle of wine, not, y'know…) then I’ll be there with nobs on and a mohican.

Anyway here’s the new trailer, which I smiled all the way through until the last bit with the tank, at which I actually burst out laughing and woke up Mrs The Incredible Suit, who had fallen asleep from the sheer boredom of being near me. Liam Neeson fluffs the iconic line though; must try harder come July 30th.



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Even George Alagiah Got Aroused

What with all this London Film Festival nonsense and other assorted tedious toss, The Incredible Suit is ashamed to have been somewhat remiss in keeping up on blogworthy movie news to report back to you, the loyal viewer. I hope to put this right with a couple of typically belated and inane observations:

Firstly, you may recall that I was left wholly unmoved by the first trailer for Avatar, which even George Alagiah got aroused by on the BBC Six O’Clock News. If you’re an incurable insomniac you can read my previous witterings here.

Anyway, a second trailer has been squirted all over the interwebs, and it looks like this:

No doubt George required a complete change of underwear after that, but The Incredible Suit remains stubbornly flaccid. This film is not just going to have to be an incredible 3D experience to impress me but it'll have to dance a jig, remember my birthday and make me toast every day for a week before it even comes close to reaching the dizzy heights of astonishery that the rest of the world seem to think it's already attained.

Secondly, some time ago I posted a picture of the cast of The A-Team doing what appeared to be absolutely bog all:

Perhaps they were waiting for a plan to come together so they could love it, or maybe they were scouring the ground for a couple of sticks with which to make their own Large Hadron Collider.

Anyway, as The A-Team director Joe Carnahan is an avid viewer of The Incredible Suit*, he’s evidently realised that he’s taken the eye of the ball somewhat, and within seconds of my original post** he let rip with this slightly more interesting shot:

What’s most uncanny about this new picture is not that Bradley Cooper, as Face, has apparently been photoshopped by someone with the picture editing skills of a limbless orangutan, but that Liam Neeson, as Hannibal, looks almost exactly like my father-in-law.

See? Weird.

*I am 99% certain this is a lie, but you never know
**Approximately 1,209,600 seconds

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SHEER STAGGERING EXTREMENESS!!!

Next year’s SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER season includes EPIC ACTION in the EXPLOSIVE THE A-TEAM, with THRILLS, EXCITEMENT and ADVENTURE as four HARDENED RENEGADES ON THE RUN from the military FIGHT for justice and BLOW STUFF UP at EAR-SPLITTING VOLUME!!!

With AWESOME STUNTS, EXHILARATING CHASES and EYE-POPPING AMAZITUDE in every frame, you’ll be BLOWN AWAY by this BREATHTAKING EXTRAVAGASM!!!

Just leaked onto the internet is this INCREDIBLE shot of the A-Team IN FULL EFFECT!!! Be careful your EYES don’t BURST with the SHEER STAGGERING EXTREMENESS contained within!!!

Left to right: MARTIAL ARTIST and ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPION Quinton “RAMPAGE” Jackson as B.A. “BAD ATTITUDE” BARACUS!!!

LEGENDARY HARD MAN and JEDI KNIGHT Liam Neeson as JOHN “HANNIBAL” SMITH!!!

District 9’s HOT NEW STAR Sharlto Copley as HOWLIN’ MAD MURDOCK!!!

And HOLLYWOOD HEARTTHROB Bradley Cooper as TEMPLETON “FACEMAN” PECK!!!






Wait for it...







Here it comes...

WOO HOOOOO!!!!

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A Poo In A Teacup

Imagine walking into your bathroom and finding a load of toenail clippings in the sink. Pretty grim, right? But imagine if the sink was the interweb, and the toenails were actually little nuggets of noteworthy movie news. Now you’ve turned a revolting imaginary scenario into one that’s almost worth blogging about. Hooray for you! Well, hooray for me actually, I wrote the thing. All you do is sit there and read it while shovelling chocolate digestives into your face.

Here are the toenails I found in my sink today which I thought share-worthy:

Nicolas Cage won’t star in Green Hornet!
While it’s hardly news to say that somebody isn’t going to be in something, unless it’s “Shia LaBeouf will not star in anything ever again,” it’s always good to know Mr Cage and his wig of the week won’t be in a movie.

I’ve been alternately interested by and apathetic about Green Hornet since it was announced. My thought process went something like this:
Michel Gondry's making a Green Hornet movie: That sounds good. Seth Rogen’s in it: Oh. Not so interested.
Stephen Chow will play Kato: Groovy. Stephen Chow was ace in Kung Fu Hustle.
Stephen Chow won’t play Kato: Oh for heaven’s sake.
Cameron Diaz will be in it: Well that’s slightly better.
Nicolas Cage might be in it: That’s it, I’ve had it with all these Green Hornet shenanigans.
Nicolas Cage won’t be in it: Right, good, but just make the film and stop announcing who isn’t in it! This is becoming tedious.

Alex Garland is writing a new Judge Dredd movie!
I thought I was excited about this but then I realised I was just mildly curious about a new Judge Dredd film. After all a poo in a teacup would be better than the 1995 Sylvester Stallone version. I mean, hello, he takes his helmet off! Wrong, just wrong.

Alex Garland has only actually written half a good movie, The Beach. The rest have been a bit rubbish, so this particular toenail goes in the ‘Wait And See’ cupboard.

The A-Team movie has found its BA Baracus!
Liam Neeson is Hannibal. Bradley Cooper is Face. And now it appears the ludicrously named (although I probably wouldn’t say it to his face) Quinton Ramone “Rampage” Jackson is BA Baracus. I’m still looking forward to the film but I can’t help feeling like the best BA would have been Blighty’s own Matt Lucas:


And the big toenail in the sink is…
The announcement of the programme for the 2009 London Film Festival, on which I am duty-bound to report now that I run an award-winning blog*. There are about 20 films I want to see so it looks like I’ll have to resign from my job for the last fortnight in October. I’m sure they’ll cope without me, all I do is use their facilities to write my blog. Ssshh!

*Blog not actually award-winning

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