Inspired by the movie, not having seen it in years and in part of watching TNG on DVD the last couple of weeks I've gotten Season 1 of the A-Team on DVD. Watching it now.
Dwight Schultz is brilliant.
Totally agree with you
He has a minor role in A-Team which is quite sad because he was the funniest and charismatic of the characters like
Dean Martin was. Liam Neeson is always great and faithfully tried to duplicate the role and did so well.
Lets hope that Dwight Schultz get a bigger part in the sequel. Am sure they will make one
Loved the part where he hang on the rotorblade of the helicopter while singing Lady Gaga's song
great moment.
Mr. T was not as interesting a character in this movie as I had hoped but he didn't have much to work with either. Bradley Cooper also did a really great job being funny.
Overall, A-Team movie was a pleasant surprise in a stream of so-so movies.
From watching the series my take on the characters, keeping in mind the movie is taking a "serious action-drama" approach to a "action-comedy" TV series made in the 1980s.
Hannibal: I think Liam pulls of this switch really well, Liam really seems like a trained, brilliant soldier who just-a-bit off his nutter. The only problem is I don't think the movie quite pulled off his penchant for disguises or his.... "instablilty."
Face: I think Bradley Cooper pulls off the "sauve charasmatic con man" a lot better than either "original" really did. He makes this transition really well.
Murdoch: As I said up thread, Dwight Schultz in the series is great as Murdoch, watching some TNG episodes inspired me to get the A-Team on DVD to revisit DS in the series. He does a great job playing the unbalanced Murdoch but I think the District 9 guy does a great job playing Murdoch on the big screen and also pulls of "something not right with this guy" well on screen.
BA: Frankly, they were screwed here no matter what. Short of getting Mr. T to reprise the role for the movie (which, honestly, they should have) there's nothing they could've done here to live up to the iconic meme Mr. T has become. Rampage's first day on the set and the director must've told him, "Dude, don't even try." As I said in my movie review I think Rampage plays BA a little close to the "naive rookie/kid" type but, given that he couldn't possibly meet or beat the original, I think he did a good-enough job. His "relationship" with Murdoch was well played.
Re: A sequel. I doubt it, The A-Team isn't doing "great" business. As of this posting Box Office Mojo has the movie at a Worldwide Take of about $97 Million, a little less than $59 million of that Domestic, comapred to the movie's $110 million production budger (half-again of which will be marketing costs) and, well, you've got the makings of a "flop" here. At
best the movie looks to break even unless it does some amazing DVD sales or the increased sales it may have generated on the series DVD makes the property more attractive for a sequel.
Of those shows only Magnum P.I. had enough grit that I would watch it multiple times. I always preferred his grittier episodes. I doubt anyone tries to reboot Magnum, not counting the Las Vegas episode until Tom Selleck retires.
