Review of Suicide Squad (2016) by Spangle — 23 Aug 2016

Suicide Squad is a bad film, but damn is it a lot of fun. Not my thing, but I can see why one would enjoy it if they are into comic books. Me, however, I am not. As it stands, it leaves more than a bit to be desired. First though, the positives. Will Smith is very charismatic and knows how to play Will Smith. Margot Robbie is terrific as Harley Quinn. Acting-wise, she is hit-and-miss in the film. However, in terms of playing Harley Quinn, she was born to play the role. I loved June Moore. Cara Delevigne did well as her. She struggled as Enchantress, but I loved June Moore. I really liked Jared Leto as the Joker. I loved the gangster take on it, which certainly plays into David Ayer's sensibilities, but I enjoyed it. That said, I would have either gone full Joker or cut him entirely from the film. He was a bit like filler in my mind. Additionally, I thoroughly enjoyed the middle of the film. The film moves past the classic rock music and the character introductions to truly find its groove. Here, it is imperfect, but thoroughly fun and enjoyable. That is, until the end.

Now the negatives. The film often plays as if David Ayer loved classic rock and had longed to make a music video for these songs. Unfortunately, he was misled into thinking this was a good time to do so. As a result, the songs are entirely distracting and take away from the film. They frequently pull you out of the movie and focused solely on the movie. The opening showcases this as they try to introduce the characters. The character development also sucked. Suicide Squad forgot there were more characters than Deadshot and Harley Quinn apparently because nobody else got any attention, especially Slipknot(?). If you were not aware of any of the characters beforehand (as was the case for me), you wee entirely SOL. The character interactions were also dreadful, particularly when Killer Croc is involved. The dialogue was poor for everyone from beginning to end, but his was a special kind of horrible. I physically cringed every time he opened his reptile mouth. The other characters' dialogue were also bad, but not as bad. Captain Boomerang was also entirely useless. He throws boomerangs twice, but both fail. His little unicorn was far more enjoyable than him. This said, I am glad that only Deadshot and Harley Quinn got any attention at all, because the rest were horrific actors. They did not need any more lines to deliver poorly. The ending also leaves a lot to be desired. Though I loved June Moore, I wish they had not used Enchantress because this ludicrous, off-the-wall, and thoroughly unenjoyable ending is sadly impossible to avoid. I do not know how else to end it, so I wish they did not choose her as the villain. That said, the special effects regarding her were solid, though they felt like they were straight out of the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies. Finally, the movie just felt oddly ordered. There was no flow between scenes. Instead, they smashed into one another (much like in Batman v. Superman) where they barely related to one another. It was almost as if Ayer came up with some cool ideas for scenes, but had no idea how they related to the plot or what order to put them in. So, he shot them and figured the editors could somehow work miracles with the nonsense he shot. Unfortunately, editors are not miracle workers. Thus, for this, I do not blame editing. Unlike Batman v. Superman in which there was a good film desperately trying to come out only to be killed by Zack Snyder, there is no good film underneath Suicide Squad. Instead, there is only disappointment and David Ayer failing spectacularly at telling any kind of worthwhile story with this set of characters. This is very unfortunate, considering I was really hoping that Suicide Squad would be really good. Even after the reviews, I hoped I would like it. Yet, here we are. Though it may be enjoyable, Suicide Squad is a bloody mess.