I was going to make a joke about it being from the Greek for “Pain of Returning” but it turns out that’s actually how the word is derived. Score one for over education, and an extra point for classical studies.

So I went to see the A-Team not long ago – the new movie version, not the original series. I should point out, though, that I loved the original series as a kid, even if it seemed a little miraculous that no one ever got hurt in those explosions. I hoped, for a brief moment, to recapture some of that little-kid glee that I remembered from my youth. I was not disappointed.

Honestly, the only way the film could have been better for me would be if I had my brother with me when I watched it. The two of us watched more than our share of the original A-Team growing up, and watching the movie put me in the mind of the fun we had. That, in turn, got me thinking about the point of these TV-to-Movie retreads. Once upon a time, things went the other way – a successful movie would often get made into a not-nearly-so-successful tv series in an effort to cash in on some of the film’s popularity. Obviously M*A*S*H is the exception that proves the rule, but how many people remember the Animal House tv series? Yeah, I thought not. (It was called “Delta House” and ran for a single season in 1979)

These retreads, though, are going the opposite direction – rather than trying to cash in on a popular show, they’re cashing in on our nostalgia for that show. The original A-Team wasn’t any sort of masterful series. Despite the length of time it spent on the air, the individual episodes were remarkably similar. Most every problem was solved by assembling an armored vehicle out of scrap metal, fireworks and a golf cart. But the feeling that you had watching it as a kid – that’s what the film tried to recapture. It lures you in, because a lot of us want to recapture that glimmer of our youth. Too few of the tv-to-screen adaptations have remembered that, and what a shame that is.

The A-Team gets it right, for the record. It knows what its goals are going in, and less than 5 minutes into the movie, you see Mr. T’s trademark lines tattooed across the knuckles of the new B.A. Barracus. It recognizes that what it offered was goofy fun, and dishes up a new helping of it with gusto. Is it great film making? Hardly. But it is the most fun I’ve had in a theatre in a long time.

Now someone needs to get started on the Macguyver movie.