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Awix (3310 KP) rated The A-Team (2010) in Movies

Feb 16, 2020

The A-Team (2010)

2010 | Action

6.2

(15 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Leaden remake of the popular-in-the-80s-but-only-possible-to-enjoy-ironically-now TV action show. Unhinged special-forces unit the A-Team are framed for a crime they didn't commit, bust out of prison, try to clear their names by going to Germany. Where, you may be wondering, is the mom 'n' pop store being threatened by cheap gangsters the team are called in to protect? Where is Hannibal putting on a stupid disguise? Where is the bit where the bad guys lock them in a shed with a load of welding gear, allowing them to build an armoured car out of bits of old washing machine? Where is the scene where they spray 35,000 rounds of .223 ammunition at the bad guys, destroying everything in sight but leaving their targets miraculously unscathed? Friends, none of these things are here.

Instead it's almost as if the A-Team have wandered into a rather downbeat Mission: Impossible movie, or possibly one of the Bournes. You don't expect to have to wrestle with the plot of The A-Team but there's a confusing tangle of double-crosses and betrayals between military intelligence, the CIA and private security firms at the heart of this. Seems to fundamentally misunderstand the essential cheesy disposability of The A-Team by trying to make it feel like a serious drama. I wouldn't have thought it was possible: this manages to be both inauthentic to the original series and also bad.

Kudos

Command Authority (Jack Ryan Universe, #16)

Tom Clancy

10.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Decades ago, when he was a young CIA analyst, President Jack Ryan, Sr. was sent on what was supposed...

The Star Gate Archives: Reports of the United States Government Sponsored PSI Program, 1972-1995: Volume 3: Psychokinesis

Edwin C. May

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

In response to the threats during the Cold War, the CIA took cautious first steps to determine...

Red Sparrow

Jason Matthews

7.3 (3 Ratings) Rate It

Book

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton and Jeremy Irons....

How the Gloves Came off: Lawyers, Policy Makers, and Norms in the Debate on Torture

Elizabeth Grimm Arsenault

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

The treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, Guantanamo Bay, and far-flung CIA "black sites"...

Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2346 KP) rated The Rocky Road to Ruin in Books

Jul 28, 2021

Murder Served Ice Cold

Riley Rhodes has returned home to Penniman, Connecticut, for the funeral of her best friend’s mother. After the service, she sees that Caroline and her brother, Mike, are fighting over what to do with the property that the two of them were left, including Udderly Delicious, the ice cream shop where Riley worked as a teen. The next morning, Riley finds Mike dead. Knowing that Caroline will be a prime suspect, Riley tries to figure out what happened. Can she do it?

Riley has a fun background for an amateur sleuth – CIA librarian. And yet this is definitely still a cozy, and the warmth pulled me in right away. This book has a bit of a bittersweet vibe. We get the wonderful characters and setting we love in a cozy, but the beginning is appropriately somber. It really works well. The pacing was a little uneven in the middle, but the book had a strong beginning and ending that make up for it. I had a hard time putting the book down the closer I got to the climax. There is more than enough talk to ice cream to make you drool, and two recipes inspired by the more creative contributions are in the back of the book. Now’s the time to enjoy this debut. Me? I’ll be having a second helping of ice cream while I wait for the sequel.