Suicide Squad review
Hello everyone! Remember back in December when I said Suicide Squad was my most anticipated movie of 2016? Well a couple big things happened in between then and now; or more specifically one big thing: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It was this movie that dashed the childlike naivete from my eyes and awakened me to the horrible realization that the people in charge of the DC Cinematic Universe have no clue what they’re actually doing–and the 5 months or so in between the release of that and the release of this didn’t exactly do anything to raise my spirits. The one bright hope for their future was a little flame named Suicide Squad; a flame that kept dimming slowly until around this Tuesday when the internet came around with a big bucket labeled “Review Embargo” and doused that flame completely. Add to that the marketing and licensing that seemed to proclaim louder and louder, “LOOK AT US, WE’RE EDGY! PLEASE BUY OUR HOT TOPIC MERCH” and well let’s just say some part in the back of my mind started preparing for the inevitable. I started to see this movie for what it was; essentially DC’s poor attempt to make Guardians of the Galaxy but for emo-teenagers. So let’s just say my expectations were about as low as they could’ve gotten before I went to see this movie and lo and behold I can safely say my expectations were exceeded! Barely.
You see, in order for you to understand why I don’t hate Suicide Squad as much as everyone else–at least not yet anyway–I think it’s necessary I give some context. While I did manage to more or less shield myself from any actual written reviews and/or criticisms of the movie, I did happen to find a Hollywood Reporter Article detailing the incredibly problematic production of this movie. I’ll summarize the key points put forth in the article: Apparently director David Ayer wrote the script for Suicide Squad in something like 6 weeks. Warner Brothers then panicked in response to the critical backlash directed at Batman v Superman, and decided to create their own cut of the film using an assistant from Trailer Park; the company that had created the teaser to which everyone (myself included) had responded well. THEN they reportedly test-screened their supposedly “lighter and more joke-heavy” version of the film next to Ayer’s original darker cut, and decided to mash both cuts together in the end in an attempt to find common ground. As if this didn’t already sound bad enough, Warner Bros then produced yet ANOTHER cut of the movie after Ayer attempted to leave Warner Bros when they refused to fund his next project. If this sounds like all of this would produce is a garbled mess of a film, tonally broken as the result of having passed through multiple hands, you’re completely right.
You see, this isn’t even the first time we’ve had something like this happen in recent memory. Movies like Fant4stic have proven that when a studio loses faith in a project they will usually try and handle the movie themselves; and that usually leads to a movie that’s even worse then what might’ve come before. So some of the worst aspects of Suicide Squad, such as its absolutely atrocious editing and horrifically bad script, I blame more upon studio interference and don’t look at it as a reflection of somebody’s work. I’m not saying this magically fixes everything or that Hollywood studios are inherently evil, but I think that even when you think back to the hype-reel they released back at Comic-con 2015 you can tell this movie changed a lot from what it was originally intended to be.
But yeah we might as well delve into the bad and just get this over with. The editing is really what sinks this whole movie. You can tell that scenes that were supposed to go on longer and be presented in an entirely different way have been completely reworked, and as a result the entire movie feels really REALLY awkward. The pacing is absolutely shot as a result, as the movie needs to spend about the first 20 minutes accurately explaining who everyone is and what their motivations are, and then decides to take about 15 more minutes establishing that everyone is badass just in case you missed it. And then I guess we need to spend about another 10 minutes gearing everyone up and… Yep, that’s act one. The screenplay sucks. Again, this is definitely a result of the script only being written in 6 weeks, but it’s filled to the brim with half-baked ideas that honestly wouldn’t have even sounded good on paper to me. The movie veers around wildly seemingly trying to hit every note and every beat it can but it’s all so rushed it doesn’t do anything very well. The perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with the movie is honestly Jared Leto’s Joker. Leto seems like a fine actor and conceptually his incarnation of Joker is definitely a unique one with a lot of potential, but in practice it falls flat. A combination of poorly written material and really bad editing simply hinders Leto from registering as a real presence as the Joker. They include just enough of him to have “moments” as a character, but he’s honestly on-screen for so little time in the final cut of this that he ends up being completely inconsequential to the plot. No, literally, you can absolutely cut his character out of the movie and the movie would be just fine. So instead all we’re left with is a series of very poorly executed moments with a character that just happens to be named “The Joker.” I was never once remotely intimidated by his portrayal, and honestly when you’re handling a character like The Joker I feel that’s the biggest crime of all.
But anyway that’s far from all that’s wrong with the movie. I don’t know if this come from David Ayer being an especially “Guy oriented” action movie director, who keep in mind has mostly done smaller-budget action films before this point, but there’s a somewhat annoying strand of casual racism and sexism prevalent throughout the movie. Not quite enough so that you might stand up in the theater and yell “That’s racist,” or “That’s sexist,” but juuuust enough that it kinda gets a little annoying. Super-hero movie’s are earning a reputation of this generation’s rallying point; movie’s that literally everyone can see and have a good time at. It doesn’t help your audience AT ALL if some members of the audience end up feeling slightly marginalized, especially in today’s day and age where Hollywood’s already having plenty of trouble adjusting to having to make movie’s for other demographics other than white males. If this doesn’t bother you at all, that’s fine, but I just wanted to address that really quick.
Anyway let’s get into the real meat of this movie; the villain! Yeah for a movie that’s been explicitly marketing itself on how the movies heroes are explicitly “Bad Guys” the actual Bad Guys of the movie are some of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen. Poor Cara Delevingne is stuck as the Enchantress, a character that alternately switches between being the little girl from The Grudge and Rita Repulsa from Power Rangers. It is absolutely hilarious watching Delevingne attempting to deliver some of the most cliche’d evil villain dialogue I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure you can actually say for certain when you’ve seen a summer blockbuster use Mortal Kombat: Annihilation as a reference point, but I think this movie tries. I kid you not, the ending of this movie literally comes down to a one-on-one fist fight between two giant CGI atrocities, and I had to remind myself that I hadn’t accidentally gone to sleep and wasn’t dreaming about Gods of Egypt.
So if this movie is this fundamentally bad and broken on every level, why do I like it more then Batman V Superman or some of the other movie’s I’ve seen this year? Well that probably comes down to personal preference for the most part, but I honestly just had more fun watching this then I’ve had watching some other bad movie’s I’ve seen this year. For one thing it’s got more then its fair share of “so-bad-it’s-good” moments as I’ve outlined above. For another, the entire cast of the actual Squad really sells it. Will Smith proves he can still be a compelling lead when he wants too, Margot Robby makes the most out of Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney actually manages to register as a presence for what’s probably the first time in his career, Viola Davis is the closest thing to an inverted Nick Fury the DC Cinematic Universe is gonna get, and even most of the minor Squad members are actually given compelling enough backstories that I actually wanted the movie to just take a minute to let them talk. The best part of the movie by far is when they all decide to just hang out in a bar. I mean the scene is mostly used to establish one Squad members backstory so that he’ll be important later so it’s kinda wasted, but it at least shows for a minute this movie almost knew what it was doing. And I guess at the end of the day I can at least appreciate it when a movie has a little bit of charm. Even if that movie is a train wreck.
So, what did we learn today, kids? Don’t write your big-budget tent-pole movie meant to support a multi-film venture in 6 weeks, and don’t let your studio take charge of a final cut of a movie. I’d say overall this film has basically killed any and all hope I had for a good DC Cinematic Universe. It’s a movie we’re almost certainly going to look back on in a couple years and be absolutely embarrassed we had such high hopes for. But hey, I really can’t say I hate it. I’ve seen much more cynical movies this year, I’ve seen more problematic movies this year, and I’ve just seen movies that I thought were plain worse this year. If you got any enjoyment out of this, good for you! If you hate this movie, fine, please don’t rain ruin anyone else’s experience with the movie! As for me, I feel I’ve said more then enough.
The Media Fire gives this movie 4.5/10
