Review of Suicide Squad (2016) by Ian W — 30 Sep 2017

I have been waiting a long time to watch this, finally got the chance today.

I'll start with the characters, it's understandable that with so many characters some get pushed to the back. Suicide Squad felt like that, the only people from the team to get a decent screen time and back story is Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). Which isn't all that shocking, them being the biggest stars in the movie. I felt like all the characters were two dimensional, not offering much character development or depth.Will Smith stands above the rest, it felt like a Deadshot movie at times, which would be great, but it is meant to be the Suicide Squad, not Deadshot and pals. I loved Diablo, you can't fault any of the casting, all the actors suited the characters. The only issue with Diablo is it seemed so rushed, 0 too 100 in seconds, he never really showcases much, all the awesome things he could do, he turns into a massive fire demon and has a wrestling match with Incubus. Reminded me of the Green Lantern movie, all the possibilities and they go with something boring and unimaginative. Now we get to the Joker, Jared Leto offers a new take on what's one of the most iconic DC bad guys. As good as Leto did, it made no sense to have Joker in this movie, other than for Harley's origins. He seemed to add nothing to the movie. I mean, it's the Joker, I expected some crazy plan/sub plot, all we got was a sub-par rescue attempt. I enjoyed how Enchantress was portrayed, the only thing I didn't like was the weird dance moves when she was tearing the sky open. It seems pointless going into the other members of the Suicide Squad, considering they didn't find the time to either.

Having seen Assault on Arkham, I had really high expectations, it being one of my favourite animated movies. They do something Suicide Squad doesn't, make you connect to all the characters. Suicide Squad would have been much better if they had either used King Shark, or made Killer Croc half decent, he looked like gravel painted green. He's meant to be a monster, an anthropomorphic crocodile, not a gecko with human limbs.

The plot seemed miss paced, it spent 40 minutes introducing the characters, yet they still couldn't make you feel for them. The ending was lacklustre, I feel like Incubus fighting Diablo was boring. It's two very powerful beings fighting, yet I still felt like there was no real threat throughout the movie. They could just have easy been fighting over the last yogurt in the fridge. I was short of hoping for awesome superhero action.

I had fun watching Suicide Squad, I loved Harley Quinn and Deadshot, they was done really well. My review may seem harsh, I actually enjoyed the movie, I will probably end up watching it again, but it doesn't change all the flaws and mistakes. I wish it was better, nothing would be better than DC catching up with Marvel and us having two amazing universes. Seeing how they deal with a collaboration/team movie when Justice League is just around the corner worries me, a lot.

It's not as good as you would want nor as bad as what you've heard.