Does The A-Team really carry with it a huge audience following to match the likes of the Star Trek, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Transformers, Masters of the Universe or any of the other 80’s pop culture franchises that have/or soon will bring around a flock of guys trying desperately to cling on to their childhoods?

You know of the people of whom I speak. The ones who recite the catchphrases at any given opportunity as if they are the first person on the planet ever to do so. They often wear the branded t-shirts because they think promoting something that was never particularly cool is now something that miraculously makes them cool to be a fan of.

Maybe I am simply to young to get caught up in it all, born only a brief while before the show was canned in it’s fifth season but The A-Team pretty much means nothing to me outside of the figure of Mr. T who for a long while I presumed was just called Mr. T in the show too. I honestly don’t believe I’ve ever seen a full episode.

After many, many aborted attempts, a plan has formed and The A-Team are on the way back. They have been recruited as thus…

From left to right;

Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson as Sgt Bosco ‘B.A.’ Baracus, Sharlto Copley as Capt. ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock and Liam Neeson as Col John ‘Hannibal’ Smith.

The above image from EW, is the first official look we’ve been granted of the new team. We’ve already seen a spy photo and a look at the new van but this is the first fully rendered image that Fox wanted us to see, and boy did they really go to down with the photo-shopping. The smaller you see this photo the better.

Not much to say on this one really. I like the cast, they feel different to who I was expecting to be rolled out. They have personalities of their own but oddly are nostalgic depictions of what went before. I too really like the work of director Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces, Narc) and after the shafting he got on Mission Impossible III, it’s kind of cool to see him get a big budget movie.

I expect it to be loud, I expect it to be brash, over-the-top, insanely full of balls-to-the wall unapologetic action. It should give Stallone’s The Expendables a run for it’s money in this department when it opens next June but if I pay to see it opening weekend, it’ll be because of a combination of a great entertaining trailer, the track record of the man behind the camera and the fun cast. It won’t in my household be because of the h0ly grail title of the film.