Review of Suicide Squad (2016) by D'Ante D — 29 Jan 2017

"It is more loud and mean-spirited than I imagined".

Movie Review: Suicide Squad.

Date Viewed: August 6 2016.

Written and Directed By David Ayer (Street Kings, Harsh Times, End of Watch, Fury and Sabotage).

Based on characters from DC Comics.

Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Viola Davis, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Ike Barinholtz, David Harbour, Adam Beach, Common and Scott Eastwood.

"Suicide Squad" just committed fanboy suicide by making a disappointingly mediocre DC Universe film. There's certainly no way now that Warner Bros. can compete against the Marvel Cinematic Universe because they keep shooting the DC franchise in the foot with each gigantic and bloated feature. The premise looked promising, this time it would be about an anti-hero team instead of just a Batman or Superman film or "Batman v Superman". Another promising aspect was that David Ayer (who is known for making tough cop dramas) would be at the helm instead of Zack Snyder but unfortunately, "Suicide Squad" introduces us with too many characters and too many backstories we have to keep track with.

Despite some good humor and a couple of fine performances, I found "Suicide Squad" to be more loud and mean-spirited than I imagined. It aims to have a good soundtrack like Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" and aims to have the dark violence and satirical edge like this year's "Deadpool" but the song choices here range from "Okay! We get it" to obviously standard and the dark violence gets toned down here because the film carries a PG-13 rating which is more disappointing.

Just about everything in the DC Universe makes me sad except for Ben Affleck as Batman, who of course returns to make a cameo in "Suicide Squad". The villains or should I say the heroes of our story are not really frightening or menacing. Why not focus more time on developing these characters instead of just creating a tidal wave of visual effects and planting multiple Easter eggs in preparation for future DC installments. Oh yeah, how about the Joker! Yep! He's in it too but not as a member of the squad.

I was anxious to see what Jared Leto would do differently with his new Joker and the results are difficult to say because he has very little screen time. Obviously, Leto wasn't going to top Heath Ledger's fantastic work as the Clown Prince of Gotham but why did he not have more screen time? That's because the studio edited more of his scenes out so they could focus more on the new DC characters. I wasn't aware of the "Suicide Squad" comics but now I'm anxious to know more about these members and what exactly the filmmakers got wrong here.

The movie begins several months after Superman's death in the end of "Batman v Superman" as the U.S. government figures out what to do if the next Superman comes and decides to remove the president right out of the oval office. Intelligence operative Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) comes up with the brilliant and chaotic idea of assembling a team of super-villains and have them become superheroes assigned to high-risk missions such as defeating an even bigger baddie than them.

The team of dangerous criminals consist of well-equipped marksman, Deadshot (Will Smith), former psychiatrist now turned lunatic, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), an opportunistic Australian thief, Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), a pyrokinetic former gang member, El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a monstrous green cannibal, Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and a tightly-wound mercenary known as Slipknot (Adam Beach). There are also a couple of mercenaries who either serve as bodyguards for the squad or just recruits who work for the government. The first one is a skilled swordswoman named Katana (Karen Fukuhara) and the second one is an ancient with named Enchantress. She's an evil force who took over the body of female archaeologist, Dr. June Moore (Cara Delevingne). Enchantress wants to free her brother from imprisonment in the same type of artifact she was trapped in many years ago and when she does free him, they plan on destroying mankind and the Earth as punishment for sealing them away.

Dr. Moore also happens to be the girlfriend of special forces officer, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) who is the leader of the Suicide Squad. This colonel means business as Flag tells the squad members that if they make any attempt to escape or intimidate him or have him killed, they are all screwed. Their mission is to save Dr. Moore and defeat Enchantress, her brother and her minions who look like chunky blue Aero bars.

Most of the squad members particularly Captain Boomerang and El Diablo are far from appealing because they are not likable or very interesting. The two "Suicide Squad" members who do standout are Will Smith and Margot Robbie, they make their characters compelling and involving even though they are bad guys. Another cast member who has little screen time is Adam Beach because (SPOILER ALERT!) his character gets killed while attempting to escape. Come on Warner Bros. and DC!, Slipknot was probably an important character in the DC universe and the most sinful thing you can do to him is by first having him introduced and then have him taken out after just 4-5 minutes of screen time?

David Ayer (End of Watch, Sabotage, Street Kings, Fury) is a talented filmmaker, he seemed capable of bringing this incredible DC Comics story to life but this is a comic book movie that's murky and ugly to look at. "Suicide Squad" is also stuck with a plot that's haphazard and muddled. It feels good to be bad sometimes but when you're superhero movie is almost damagingly bad, you know you got a problem. You also never get a sense of these anti-heroes working together? In "Guardians of the Galaxy" however, the heroes were Han Solo-like scavengers who first hate each together and then get to know one another and work as a team so they could stop evil. "Guardians" may have had a talking tree and a gun-trotting raccoon as part of the team but these characters were more likable and compelling compared to the supposed heroes in "Suicide Squad".

"Suicide Squad" wants to be both exciting and satirically funny like "Deadpool" which was rated R but that movie had more edge and humor and it wasn't your usually conventional comic book movie. I think it's time for the DC movie universe to cool off because "Suicide Squad" has the words "big disappointment" written all over it.