'The A-Team': Plan comes together in an explosion of fun

Considering the age of the source material, the phrase, "this ain't your father's A-Team," may well apply to many moviegoers. Nevertheless, fathers, mothers and others who fondly remember the hit '80s TV show will be touched by a satisfying nostalgia as they're bludgeoned by the most extravagant ingredients a big-budget summer actioner can provide.

Pop-culturally deprived audiences that aren't acquainted with the A-Team, class of '83, needn't worry about showing up late. "The A-Team" stands alone as a whiz-bang blend of nifty characters, effective plot, comic shading and action, action, action. Fans of explosions, machine guns, brutal fisticuffs and elaborate set pieces that fuse digital effects with impressive practical stunts will get their fill as the A-Team, class of '10, accomplishes its mission — and exactly according to plan.

Make that "plan" with a capital P, because everything this elite unit of Army Rangers does is down to a preposterous Tee. "The Plan" was the heart of the TV series, which followed a band of heroes-for-hire on the run and wanted for a crime they hadn't committed. "The A-Team" is a new take on that origin, but The Plan remains at its core, this time amped up to 12 or 13.

A brisk prologue introduces valiant Col. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson), who's teamed with pretty-boy Lt. Templeton Peck, aka "Face" (Bradley Cooper), and is embroiled in rescuing a damsel from crooked Mexican cops. Circumstances quickly lead the two to the hulking Sgt. Bosco "B.A." Baracus (Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed-martial-arts champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson) and Capt. James "Howling Mad" Murdock (Sharlto Copley), an ace combat pilot and bona fide lunatic. Hannibal is certain destiny has given this band an exclusive bond.

After the opening fanfare of gunfire, missiles and a helicopter dogfight, we leap eight years and 18 A-Team missions forward. The officially christened unit is part of some vague cleanup operation in Iraq, where it's unofficially recruited by a shady CIA officer (Patrick Wilson) to retrieve a billion in counterfeit U.S. currency along with the engraving plates that made it.

The other key characters appear in short order: Hannibal's old friend Gen. Morrison (Gerald McRaney), Face's old flame Capt. Sosa (Jessica Biel) and a superbly nasty contractor named Pike (Brian Bloom), who heads the sinister private-security firm Blackforest.

Thus are the players who cross, double-cross, uncross and recross each other in a sly series of challenges that involve no terrorists, just a gaggle of covert fighters stumbling to hoodwink each other in the name of greed or good. The A-Team is duly framed and individually incarcerated, but the heroes bust out quickly with the ultimate goal of clearing their names. Playing all sides against each other to recover the purloined plates, A-Team members outline and execute a series of outlandish Plans that involves ever-growing doses of the above mentioned action.

Even with cartoony story elements that integrate a flying tank and a massive cargo ship that blows up real good, the script is remarkably crafty. A fine time is had by actors in roles that are often as meaty as they are silly. Neeson and Wilson are particularly good sports who balance bravado, noble or corrupt, with appropriate irony, almost as if according to Plan.

Ted Fry: tedfry@hotmail.com