'Suicide Squad' Review
*Spoilers for Suicide Squad and Batman vs Superman
The DC cinematic universe has not had a good run so far. Man of Steel was met by a universal “Meh, it was fine I guess” and Batman vs Superman was a complete and total train-wreck. So DC have taken a break from heroes whilst they lick their wounds from the critical backlash they received from BvS and have offered us something fresh and exciting. Focusing on Super villains, instead of heroes and offering audiences something different that hasn’t been scene on screen before (not even by Marvel). Ever since the first Suicide Squad trailer, there has been a huge amount of hype building towards this movie and I genuinely thought that this would be the film to get movie goers back on board with the franchise and kick start the DCCU properly. But does it deliver ? Not really.
Following on from Superman’s death in Batman vs Superman, the US government are concerned about the potential of another Superman like being arriving on Earth. If the next incarnation didn’t share the values of man kind, who would defend us from him. Government Agent Amanda Waller proposes to assemble ‘Task Force X’ - a rag tag team of super criminals to do their bidding for them under the leadership of Rick Flag. After being burdened with bombs implanted into their necks the team are forced to band together in order to face an otherworldly attack in Midway City.
The characters are, to me at least, the strongest element of this movie. Will Smith and Margot Robbie are of course great, but special mentions need to be made for Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang) and Jay Hernandez (El Diablo) who are both amazing. In fairness, every character in the movie is a least good and a most superb, which for a movie featuring such a vast array of characters is a real achievement. The introductions and back stories to all of the main players in the film are also amazing, particularly Harley Quinn's story of how she was converted by the Joker. In fact I enjoyed seeing it in live action so much, that I hope the rumoured Joker and Harley movie also touches on it. Also, the interactions between the characters are great. DC are clearly trying to respond criticism from past movies, by allowing the tone of the movie to be much lighter which allows for some hilarious interactions between the cast. Sure, not all of the jokes land and there are instances where you can tell that humour has been forced in during re-shoots that do feel out of place, but on the whole there are some very funny moments in the movie(although you do see a lot of them in the trailers), and its good to see DC not taking their movies too seriously. This also allows for this movie to be the most comic book accurate movie DC studios have ever put out by far. Everything from the colour palettes to the costumes and weapons on show are spot on, and yet the characters still feel grounded in the real world.
This also feels like a good time to give praise to the awesome yet brief cameos of some Justice League members. The Flash is only on screens for about 10 seconds (quite fitting of his abilities) but yet his look and costume looks truly incredible. And despite not being credited for his work in the credits, Ben Affleck crushes it as Batman. Despite also only having a brief appearance, this is certainly the best interpretation we've seen of the character, in particularly due to his accuracy to the comics (e.g. not brutally murdering people). His interactions with Deadshot and Harley Quinn are great and the mid credits scene is very intriguing.
However, this movie is movie is far from perfect. As I mention the characters are great, yet some of them of tragically underused. I can understand that Will Smith and Margot Robbie need as much screen time as possible as they're the names that are drawing more casual fans to the movie, but characters such as El Diablo and Katana deserve way more screen time. In fact Killer Croc's only purpose in the whole film is to plant the bomb at the very end, which is very obviously rammed in just so the director can say that everyone contributed. In this way DC have failed to learn from past experiences - they are more focused on featuring as many 'cool' scenes as possible without sparing a thought for the narrative of the movie. In addition, this is another example of re-shoots hindering a movie. Its rumoured that by the time the film was shot, there were two separate scripts; the directors original and the studios version to try and respond to criticism that has clearly been mashed together here. As I mentioned , a lot of the comedy feels forced, yet there are also instances such a Rick Flag's haircut changing from scene to scene that illustrate this. This sadly leads to the movies flow crashing to a holt and the whole plot and story kind of stumbles into the final act. Also the hoards of faceless enemies felt very redundant and the villain was very weak in my opinion.
You may be wondering how I've gone this far through the review without mentioning the new Joker. Thats because I genuinely forgot he was in it. I feel awful for Jared Leto. He's spent the best part of six months of his life never breaking character to try and immerse himself into the role, and yet the final product rolls around and he's barely in it. This makes it very hard for me to formulate an opinion of him. Of what I saw I liked. Jared Leto goes all out in this role and his appearance, thought upsetting to some, is a lot less noticeable in motion. However, he can't be in the movie for more than 15 minutes of screen time. I appreciate that he isn't a member of the Suicide Squad so he was never going to a main part of the story, but by the same token you could have easily left him out of the movie (except for the flashbacks of Harley Quinn's origin) and it would have made little to no difference to the story. I am, however, now very excited to see where he turns up next (Hopefully in the Batman solo movie!)
Overall, I can easily say that this is the best DCCU entry that we've seen so far but that may not be high praise considering how weak the other entries are. The story was pretty poor, the comedy felt forced at times and large chunks of this project are clearly missing. That being said, the characters were a brilliant, the opening 30/45 minutes were extremely enjoyable and the film did a great job of expanding the universe. DC are still a million miles off the quality of Marvel Movies, but this film is at least a nudge in the right direction. Hopefully, the extended/directors cut includes everything we missed in the cinematic version, as with all that present I feel this could have been a pretty good movie.
3/5 Stars
3/5 Stars
