Box office The film fell slightly short of expectations for its opening weekend, earning $26 million, as opposed to the initially predicted $30–35 million. The film opened behind
The Karate Kid, which took in $56 million. The film opened in the
UK/
Ireland on July 28, 2010 and came in at No. 3 at the box office with a first weekend haul of $5.6 million.
Critical response On
Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 48% based on 217 reviews with an average rating of 5.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "
The A-Team assembles a top-rate cast only to ditch the show's appealingly silly premise for explosive yet muddled blockbuster filmmaking." On
Metacritic, the film has a score of 47 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Owen Gleiberman of
Entertainment Weekly says of the film: "It's trash so compacted it glows".
Richard Corliss of
Time magazine calls the film "the best in a mediocre line-up of summer-action flicks". He goes on to say the film lacks "a coherent plot and complex characterization", though he does note that these qualities "are irrelevant to the genre".
Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone magazine calls the film, "big, loud, ludicrous and edited into visual incomprehension", but "pity the fool who lets that stand in the way of enjoying
The A-Team".
The Hollywood Reporter criticized the film's story, character development and logic, calling it "nearly writer-free", while the
St. Petersburg Times was far more positive, calling the film "literally a blast" from start to finish, and praises it for "containing more thrills than the average shoot-em-up". Film critic
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times said
The A-Team is an incomprehensible mess, criticizing the film for being as shallow as the television series, which he describes as "punishment" when drawn out to a two-hour-long film. Stephen Whitty of
The Star-Ledger complained the film makers remembered little more from the television series than a
Dirty Dozen gimmick and compares the film to the "awful" ''
Smokin' Aces'' by the same director. German magazine
Der Spiegel noted the grave factual errors encountered throughout the film; for example German border police speaking Norwegian and wearing Norwegian uniforms, or an aerial shot of a what is supposed to be Frankfurt am Main but prominently featuring
Cologne Cathedral; the latter being that city's main landmark and over 150 km northwest of Frankfurt.
Comments by original cast Dirk Benedict, who played Templeton "Faceman" Peck in the TV series, spoke of regretting his cameo, stating "You'll miss me if you blink. I kind of regret doing it because it's a non part. They wanted to be able to say, 'Oh yeah, the original cast are in it,' but we're not. It is three seconds. It's kind of insulting."
Mr. T, the original B. A. Baracus, was offered a cameo, but turned it down, feeling it would not be right for him to appear in the film if he did not play Baracus. In a 2010 interview with
Script magazine, director Joe Carnahan claimed that Mr. T, after viewing scenes from the film, thought the final product was "the greatest thing in the world". After the premiere of the film Mr. T allegedly stated that he had become disillusioned and felt the story emphasized sex and violence, and that it was unfaithful to the original series. An attorney for Mr. T later stated that the actor had not yet seen the film and could not comment on it.
Dwight Schultz, who played "Howling Mad" Murdock on the TV series, issued a statement to his official fansite that the film "pays homage to the series while it eschews its essential working premise: a band of capable military brothers for hire determined to save underdog and usually poor civilians from scum. ... The team characters are sufficiently different and, with so many roles reversed from the original, one could say they are not really derivative, save for their names." He also noted that Sharlto Copley's Murdock "is faithful to the original, but at the same time is big screen twisted and right at home with the new team."
Accolades ==Cancelled Sequel==