Suicide Squad Review
Warner Bros and DC have thus far delivered two films, and for me, neither excited me too much. However, ever since David Ayer was announced as writer and director, I got very excited. His past couple of films have both been slightly underappreciated and phenomenal filmmaking. That all ends with Suicide Squad. If Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) were swings and misses, Squad steps up to the plate, swings, the bat flies out of the hands, and drills an old granny in the face. It’s been a while since I’ve been in this much pain watching a movie. I felt like I had gone through physical labor by the end of the evening. I’m gonna say what can’t be unsaid: I can see fans comparing the film to Batman & Robin (1997) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). Yeah, I thought it was that bad.
So what is so wrong with it? Well, there are several areas we can explore, and I’ll steer clear of spoilers, so no worries here. First off, none of the performances impressed me very much. While I’m no expert in these villain characters, I found Deadshot a charming anti-hero, but never a cold-hearted bastard like we’re supposed to feel, Joel Kinnemann didn’t have much to add to Rick Flagg, Jai Courtney was serviceable at best as Captain Boomerang, and the other supporting villains were so-so. The best character had to be Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, and the best performance to go along with it. So what about the two most recognizable characters, Joker and Harley Quinn? Well, all I saw was an imitation of the character from Margot Robbie and Jared Leto’s Joker was so scattershot throughout the film that I could never get a sense of what the hell he is as a character? A pimp gangsta, or an over-the-top comic strip, or a threatening and menacing Heath Ledger imitation, or a love-sick puppy dog? And maybe it was just me, but I found his dialogue so garbled at times that it was hard to understand. But I’ve saved the worst for last: Cara Delevigne as Enchantress. What a miscast! First off, she’s also supposed to be one of the world’s best archaeologists, and she looks like a freshly graduated high school student. Plus all she does as a villain is shoot a green light into the sky and imitate a hula dancer. While I haven’t seen her do too many films, she is not necessarily a life-long working actress, and she is way out of her element here.
So more on the villain, Enchantress, and her brother. Why do they want the world to end? Why are they trying to kill everybody? Why do they form an army of people who look like they’re covered in burnt tar? How can this army become sharpshooters? Why wasn’t Batman called in to stop the bad guys? Why is there voodoo in the movie? Who’s the Groot rip-off brother character? I have no answers for these questions, and while the focus of the movie is on the Squad itself, you’ve got to have some form or another of set-up for us to care about defeating the bad guys. While a couple of scenes with the Squad just small-talking were interesting, every time we went back to check up on Enchantress, it made me want to get hit with a brick. In the face. It’s just so silly to see Enchantress dancing around like a hula dancer and a Groot rip-off stand around. What garbage. And don’t even get me started on the faceless army that any able-bodied toddler could take out.
Plus I love how poorly introduced the characters of Slipknot and Katana are. They just show up, and everyone’s like, well, okay, we have these two now. None of the action scenes were very intriguing. In fact, a majority of the fights are incoherently shot and edited, and it’s hard to care what’s happening. Did one of the Squad members get hurt? If they did they didn’t linger on it. The flashes we get of Batman and The Flash are forgettable at best, and there’s a mid-credits extra scene which tells us nothing we don’t already know. I won’t say who or what’s involved with this mid-credits scene, but it’s one you don’t have to stick around for. Even some simplistic special effects shots look terrible. Seriously, the 80’s Superman films looked better with their practical effects. So when we do get the CGI-heavy moments it looks like a video game I can’t play and a mess. Speaking of mess, that sums up the tone of the film, too: a gigantic mess. Almost all of the funny moments in the film are either short quips by Will Smith that are chuckles at best and all the other moments are shown in all the advertisements and trailers, so when they come up, we know what’s coming. Then when the film tries to be a serious dark villain character piece, it does it with no transition from the flat-humored moments.
Man, I have to say I got almost no enjoyment out of the film. When the last scene comes up, I just felt relief that it was time to go home and the disappointment was over. I’ll say a couple more things, one should be obvious, the other might be necessary. First off, no, I am not a Marvel fanboy. Just because I’m not enjoying the newest catalog of films from DC thus far doesn’t mean I want to see them fail. In fact, I think the counter-balance of the DC brand and the Marvel brand is a welcome addition to the film world. While we have to look next to Wonder Woman in 2017 for DC to get a good one under their belts, I’m starting to think maybe these films aren’t made for me. While I have been a lifelong fan of both the Batman and Superman characters and the rogue’s gallery of villains from the DC world, I feel like what Zach Snyder, David Ayer, and the other creative heads at Warner Bros. have done thus far is create a series of films that just doesn’t appeal to me, but rather to the Transformers level of stupid and incoherent storytelling. If it’s not for me, it’s not for me. And I went into Suicide Squad aware of the poor reviews, I didn’t let them affect my opinion. I went in with the same expectations I have for every movie: entertain me and don’t suck. While I got some entertainment out of Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice, believe it or not, Suicide Squad was like take a depressant and getting a face-beating. I guess there isn’t much more I can complain about without getting into spoiler territory. But for me, all I can say is DC die-hards, okay, give it a try, everybody else, avoid it! Please, spare yourself.
My rating, 2/10.
