My Suicide Squad Review

Everyone can relax, Suicide Squad is better than Batman v Superman. How much better? Well…

In an industry where everything has been done before, I have no issues with DC/Warner Bros. trying to make their own Guardians of the Galaxy type film. But after seeing Marvel do it well, you’d think the fruits of Warner Bros. labor would have a greater payoff.

The film is basically about the government “bribing” criminals to do America’s dirty work. It’s a plot that can work if done correctly. That’s a task this movie just couldn’t quite get right. My biggest complaint with Suicide Squad is it constantly pauses the plot to show a plethora of flashbacks. It’s the films way of doing character development. But when you have to do that at the expense of progressing the main plot, you have too many characters in your movie; even if Batman is in some of them. You make the viewer care about the person with scenes that continue the plot, not pause it. Imagine someone telling you a story and then stopping to tell different people’s backstory over and over again. It’s more annoying than your average Boston fan. Guardians of the Galaxy did a superb job with non established characters; BECAUSE THERE WEREN’T SO MANY FUCKING CHARACTERS! See where I’m going with this?

I couldn’t stand the Joker (Jared Leto). He really had no impact on the plot and gave little to no reason to give a shit about him. It felt like I was being forced to care because the Joker is a household name, not because of what he was doing in the movie. That’s really lazy. Besides the fact that he looked like Macaulay Culkin on meth, I was waiting for his moment (something like this) to make twisted people such as myself, cheer for him. That never happened. Which is really disappointing. When I heard about Leto’s bizarre behavior while filming; sending used condoms and dead rats to cast members, I was hoping we were getting a much more twisted adaptation of the Joker. Yeah, not so much. And don’t get me started on his grillz and tattoos.

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) was funny and spot on…when her vernacular didn’t change. I almost yelled at the screen, “Pick an accent and stick with it!” It gets downright ridiculous, and the director should be ashamed of himself for letting that happen. They should have had one of the characters tell her that during the movie. She could have said something like, “Hey it’s not me, it’s the voices in my head”, or something along those lines. My only other gripe is how should became evil. They made it seem like the Joker tortured her to make her a villian. In the comics, she joins him willingly. I’m still scratching my head as to why they chose to do that.

Pretty much everyone else did any where from good to great portraying their comic book character. Yes, even Will Smith :). All kidding aside, Smith (Deadshot) had some funny one-liners, and made you care about his character the most. I realize the sociopath assassin fighting for his daughter is played out, but it was done well. Besides, like I said before, this is a comic book movie. Almost everything has been done before. I wouldn’t mind seeing this character again, or even letting Will Smith star in a solo film. This is coming from someone who isn’t the biggest Will Smith fan. In other words, I said it, and I regret nothing.

The main plot was fine, and the reason why each villain in the Suicide Squad team chooses to do the right thing at the end is good, really good. I never got sick of any of them. Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) were great, fuck what anyone else says. Croc is such a weird character that I would have liked to have seen some sort of origin/backstory to him. But when you have too many characters, some things get left out. There are some scenes which are a little too far fetched, like how the Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) escapes her “prison.” If it was that simple, she would have escaped long ago, but I digress. The CGI they used for her looked good to me, and her last line had me laughing so hard I almost cried. I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say she challenges someone’s manhood.

I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t bring up El Diablo (Jay Hernandez). He owned every scene has was in, and his powers looked legit. In other words, the CGI was on point. He has a pretty cool moment in the final battle. It’s always nice to see lesser known comic book characters holding it down.

If Suicide Squad came out later down the line with most of the protagonists already shown in prior DC movies, this film might have done some serious numbers at the box office. But Warner Bros/DC seem to be obsessed with rushing everything, ergo their DC Movie Universe continues to suffer. That being said, you can leave your coat hangers at home. Suicide Squad isn’t as bad as people are saying. Unfortunately, that’s not saying much.