Review of Suicide Squad (2016) by Theraggedflygon — 27 Jul 2019

Suicide Squad is a hodgepodge of ill-fated attempts to create a unique film that breaks the mold of the modern superhero movie formula. The writing is horrendous, several characters are brought in for no apparent reason (Katana and Killer Croc come to mind as both serve very little relevance to the plot), and the general plot of this movie has me questioning why I should care about it.

While Smith and Robbie shine as making the most of their characters and delivering performances that have me excited for the future of their characters, the rest of the cast falls prey to poor writing and does little to try to make the most of it. In addition the third act of this film is a sequence of CGI fights that are immediately forgettable and nothing short of sheer disappointing.

Following the criticism of Batman v Superman and Man of Steel for being "too dark", the producers of this film attempted to mimic Marvel's style of superhero film that is full of action and quips, but ultimately falls flat on its face. If any film in the DCEU is supposed to have a dark, grim tone, this is it, but reshoots and creative differences amongst the producers of this film create an inconsistent tone that makes it hard to follow.

The soundtrack is random and rarely appropriate for the scene its matched with while the film feels like it is more about setting up the future of the DCEU (a future that is now just as muddy as the plot of this film) rather than telling a coherent story.

Now to address the elephant in the room: the Joker. Jared Leto's Joker is far from the best representation of the Joker that we have seen on the screen and it might quite possibly be the worst. However I do believe that his iteration of the character is not complete trash as others would have you believe. Drawing from Golden Age source material (as opposed to Ledger's bronze/modern age interpretation), Leto's performance successfully portrays the "gangster" archetype of the Joker from that period. Nevertheless, this is not the correct version of the Joker and Leto does fail to deliver a praiseworthy performance.

Suicide Squad is a mess. The DCEU is a mess. You're better off investing time in the MCU or rewatching the Dark Knight trilogy until the mess is cleaned up.