[Editor's Note: For more reviews of the biggest summer blockbusters, check out the Daily Loaf Movie Review Index.]

I was a little kid during the television run of The A-Team, NBC's silly, action-packed serial about four soldiers convicted of a crime they did not commit who promptly escaped confinement and spent five seasons on the lam helping out folks with problems the law wouldn't touch. As a boy, I loved The A-Team. Loved everything about it, actually. Loved ringleader Hannibal's (George Peppard) cigars and costumes and catchphrases; loved ace pilot "Howlin' Mad" Murdoch's (Dwight Schultz) insane ramblings and invisible dog; Loved B.A. Baracus' (Mr. T) fashion sense, bad attitude and psychotic fear of flying; Oh, and there was a pretty boy in there, too. Honestly, the only thing I remember about Templeton "Faceman" Peck (Dirk Benedict) was that he was a ladies man. Now that I think about it that may have been the only reason the team kept him around.

More than the actors or plots or the ludicrousness of repeated gunfights without casualties, what I loved about The A-Team was the inevitable scene in which the crew, captured and awaiting torture/execution/worse, would be confined to a fully-stocked warehouse loaded with tools, vehicles and would-be weapons. There are few things more satisfying in the life of an 8-year-old boy than a montage of sweaty men with blowtorches welding together steel before crashing a truck that looks like a reject from The Road Warrior through poorly defended double doors and blasting their way to freedom. I was especially delighted when the team would finally get the drop on their enemies, only to ditch their guns and finish the battle with a good, old-fashioned fist fight.

This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2010.