Review: The A-Team (12A)***

Don't be fooled. Only the names (and certain characteristics) remain the same in this loud and violent update of Stephen J Cannell's paean to comic-book tomfoolery.

Hannibal, Face, Murdock and BA are, indeed, the quartet in this fairly brainless shoot-'em-up. But whereas the TV show cast them as Vietnam veterans wrongly convicted of a crime they didn't commit, this re-boot emerges as, in essence, a hi-tech pilot for a hoped-for franchise.

From a covert mission in Iraq that goes awry, our heroes slip into the netherworld of black ops, battling to prove they weren't responsible for the death of a senior officer.

The film lacks that fundamental lightweight approach that made the TV series such fun.

Liam Neeson claims to have had Lee Marvin in mind when he agreed to play Hannibal Smith, but there's little of the rangy star in Neeson's portrayal.

Meanwhile, relative unknowns Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Sharlto Copley do their bit as BA Baracus and Howling Mad Murdock respectively, while ladies' man Templeton Peck is given a degree of cool by Bradley Cooper.

The A-Team will please few. It leaves behind the nonsense of the Eighties for an over-reliance on computer-generated imagery that makes it indistinguishable from every other bulletfest.