The releases of Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and the subsequent universal panning by both critics and fans, planted DC and Warner Bros. on their heels at the edge of the cliff. With one more push needed to send them plummeting, the two studios needed Suicide Squad to be their saving grace, and allow them to stride forward as they attempt to catch up with the ever-growing Marvel tree. But does this ensemble piece make up for the sins of its family’s past? Sadly, no, and in fact adds more trouble to this seemingly damned cinematic universe.
Suicide Squad begins with Viola Davis’ character, Amanda Waller, having dinner with a few other government bodies where she presents her case to bring together “a group of bad people who can do some good.” She uses the emergence of Superman, and the events of BVS, to bully the officials into supporting the creation of Task Force X as they are ill-equipped to handle these super beings. This leads into stylish and fun montages that highlight the backgrounds of the squad members. However, after the team assembles and given their vague mission is when the movie takes a nosedive and becomes what these movies fear most: boring and predictable. It’s a bad sign considering the movie is not even halfway through its running time.
Although the introduction montages presented some good eye-candy and catchy songs, albeit these were the only instances where the songs seemed to correctly fit, the audience is never given an opportunity to connect more deeply with most of the characters. That creates a bit of a problem, because you’re deprived of feeling any sort of compassion or understanding for why these people are what they are and do what they do. This is largely in part to having too many characters and not enough time to flesh them out. The film attempts to provide context with flashbacks, however, the editing is extremely choppy, making them feel crammed in as opposed to fluid transitioning back and forth. It takes you out of that world, and has you questioning how this movie made it past the editing stage. Examples being a shot of Harley Quinn standing up only to immediately cut to her sitting back down, or Rick Flag switching back and forth between hair styles during the final act.
The movie isn’t exactly an utter disaster as there are some elements that can be hailed as positives, but they are few and far between. Will Smith gives a humanizing performance as the hitman Deadshot, and although his side arc is that cliche and cheesy “I do bad things but I do it for my daughter so I’m kind of good,” he uses his star presence and A-list acting skills to make up for the elementary writing: one of the largest problems of the movie.
Davis showcases her role extremely well as the coldhearted and ruthless Amanda Waller who conducts her job with a “by any means necessary” approach. This style works since her task is to gather and keep in constant check a group of hardened criminals, so it’s needed to have a believable someone that even the big bad guys fear. She holds your attention in every scene she’s in, and it’s when she’s absent that the movie loses a lot of its steam.
Unfortunately, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn did not quite live up to the expectations the trailers would lead one to believe. Many of her jokes fell flat and forced, or were ruined by the multiple three minute trailers leading to the movie’s release. Her flashbacks felt out of place when they were used, and also left out needed context. It should’ve been noteworthy to include how Harley fell in love with the Joker, but the flashbacks occur after the fact leaving one to wonder how in the world a trained psychologist could fall head over heels for the most deranged criminal in the DC Universe. Don’t get me wrong, Robbie definitely looks and acts the part, and the role of Harley Quinn is almost as tough to portray as the Joker. It’s just when she has to deliver the Harleyesque jokes that you notice the missteps, which, again, may be credited to using a lot of them in the trailers.
Jared Leto’s Joker is a chilling portrayal, and despite coming off similar to Ledger’s performance at times with certain mannerisms and speech, Leto does distance himself enough from the past incarnations. Here, he is the Clown Prince of Crime coming off even more psychotic and dangerous, with a greater emphasis on physical pain rather than emotional much like a mob boss. The one downside is that since the Joker isn’t the main villain, his subplot forces itself into the main story rather than run perpendicular with it. By the end, he hasn’t left much of an impact on the movie as a whole, and makes one think the movie would have benefitted in excluding him in order to focus on the other, weaker developed characters.
Amanda Waller, Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and the Joker were the most padded characters of the group, which really isn’t saying much since these four still have development faults. As for the others, well, I’ll try and do my best with what was given. The rest of the squad consists of Killer Croc, an African cannibal with a rare skin condition and abnormal strength; Enchantress, an ancient powerful witch; El Diablo, a tatted gangbanger who can control fire; Captain Boomerang, an Australian robber who uses boomerangs to do things but you don’t really know what; and Slipknot, a Native American who uses ropes to, uh, climb things. Honestly, its a mystery why Slipknot and Captain Boomerang were even included as you really don’t know what they can bring to the table when stopping forces that only super powered people can fight against. This is even furthered when Slipknot is the only character without a introductory montage, and is subsequently killed ten minutes after he arrives.
This random group of bad guys is led by Joel Kinnaman’s Commander Rick Flag who comes off lacking in the leadership department, making you disbelieve he could ever fully control the squad. Flag is aided by his bodyguard, Katana, who appears over halfway through the movie, and is almost completely silent making her more of a glorified cameo much like Slipknot. She also wields a sword that takes the souls of its victims which everyone just chalks up as normal, even though the emergence of Superman and his abilities was such a culture shock.
With everything said about the characters, these issues harken back to the biggest problem of all: the writing. Whereas BVS at least tried to create an interesting and original story that provides more insight about the main characters, Suicide Squad said ‘screw it’ and created something we’ve seen countless times. From the bland villains and their army of zombies to the cliche love and family stories, you could predict every beat from a mile away while rolling your eyes to every tacky line. At times, it felt as though the studio considered the audience too dumb to grasp things, thus creating unnecessary dialogue exchanges such as stating the same love interests various times or instances like,”OK now we can go use X to destroy Y and save Z.” Even the action scenes were mundane, coming off more as time-filling montages as the squad blasted through the zombie hordes with relative ease. So easy in fact that you don’t understand why this special task force was even needed. Fuel is added to this notion in that they’re accompanied by a group of regular soldiers who have little to no trouble holding their own in these scenes.
Suicide Squad is a much different style of movie compared to the first two entries of the DC Extended Universe, but like the others it fails to live up to its hype. It starts with a fury while seeking to firmly cement itself as a new take on comic book characters, only to lose its excitement and succumb to the same cliche and predictable story beats that continue to plague these movies. Its flashy on the outside, but hollow as you delve within.
Since its first trailer released at Comic-Con last year, I could not wait to finally see this movie. If I came off as an unrelenting basher its only because I had such high hopes, and thought it would right the course for the future DC movies. I did not expect to watch something severely lacking in heart and thought, especially when the writer-director David Ayer has movies like Training Day and End of Watch to his credit. Ultimately, this is strike three for DC and Warner Bros., here’s to now hoping Wonder Woman can be the next believed savior.
5.6/10
Lopes
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