Suicide Squad is Not Good.
Suicide Squad is not very good. It's the worst kind of "not very good"; it isn't spectacularly awful, its not incredibly over-the-top, its not filled with that one standout character that makes everybody say "they saved the movie." No, it's just your run-of-the-mill aggressively average type of "not very good." The plot is straightforward and rote, none of the Squad are particularly memorable, Rope Guy dies in 2 minutes but I'm guessing everyone saw that one coming. There are so many problems in this movie, I kind of just want to break down each component one by one to see how detrimental each is to the movie.
Let's start with point number one: The Joker. To put it bluntly, Jared Leto does not understand who the Joker is at all. Nicholson did, infusing the same manic energy he brought in "The Shining" with some who was cunning and twisted. Ledger did, eschewing humor for a very visible sense of off-kilter, demonstrating how psychotic and tactical the Joker can be. Leto did not, opting to emphasize the cartoonishness of the Joker and trying his best to help inspire kids to shop at Hot Topic. There's none of the menace of Ledger's version, none of the twisted manic energy of Nicholson, and sure as hell not enough camp to match Romero's Joker. It's just...awful. He reminds me of an ADHD typical edgy teen who thinks tattoos make him cool and prides himself on how DAMAGED he is. Leto brings none of the nuance, none of the experienced character work, none of his method madness to the role. He's a huge disappointment and brings the film down, considering how much of the marketing was focused on him. What do I hope Leto learns from this role? In short, more this:
Less this:
Deadshot? Will Smith with 80% less charm. He's very blatantly supposed to be this likeable dude, but my guess is, Ayer had him play someone a bit more dramatic and darker while WB said "Shit, our movie needs to be funny, and Will's known to be funny. FUCK DID AYER MAKE HIM QUIP WE NEED OUR RESHOOTS TO MAKE HIM QUIP." Grade: B- because I like Will Smith and A
Harley Quinn? She's actually interesting. She gets flashbacks that show how troubled she is and how prison is basically breaking her down even further. And of course all of that gets scrapped for "Look how quippy and bad-ass and one-note she is!" Margot Robbie is a talented actress and Harley could have really been a role for her to shine in; not many writers explore what the Joker did to Harley mentally as they talked nor do many really explore the semi-abusive relationship* they have with one another. (*Side note: I know a lot of writers write the Joker-Harley relationship like true love and a lot write it like its an abusive one, but it seems to me that any relationship that revolves around a psycho clown manipulating a girl to jump in a vat of acid & have a psychotic break may not exactly be the healthiest one. Again, it's up to you to decide how to interpret it.) Grade: C+
El Diablo? He's passable. His narrative arc is one of the better (read: barely competently executed) arcs in the film, and he's not awful to watch. Grade: B-
Killer Croc? He exists and say about 5 lines. That's about it. He gets no narrative arc and basically has no real reason to exist. You could literally cut out his scenes and replace his presence in pivotal ones with Deadshot or Quinn, and the movie has a chance of being better. Grade: D- because Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje somehow makes me like the character.
Katana? She exists and says about 5 lines, but they're all in Japanese. She also gets no narrative arc and definitively has no reason to exist. Cut out all 2 minutes of the movie she's in focus, crop her out of the group and action scenes, and nothing of value would be lost. At all. Grade: F.
Rope Guy? Dies in 2 minutes. Nothing more needs to be said. Grade: Can you get a grade if you existed only to die?
Rick Flagg? Dude's a talking Call of Duty protagonist. Only thing of merit is that he's supposed to have a romantic relationship with Enchantress but of course no development means we're supposed to be happy when they reunite but nobody does. He's passable, but incredibly 2-Dimensional. Grade: C+
Enchantress? Her reason to destroy the world was dumb as shit. It was like she was channeling the spirit of a 70-year-old whining about those damn kids playing Pikamens Glo on their iPhones and finds the remote to complicated to use. In her final monologue, it looked like she was belly-dancing while trying to act imposing. It was hilarious, but an awful character choice. Such a bad villain. Grade: D+
Amanda Waller? She might actually be one of the best characters in this movie which really isn't saying much, considering how awful everyone else is, but Viola Davis brings the Wall to life. Waller is infamous for being a hardass, for manipulating the shit out of everyone, for doing the things deemed unethical. And Viola Davis translates every bit of that to the screen. Waller doesn't take any shit, and she does what needs to be done. Grade: B+
Captain Boomerang? As a character, he's crap. He's meant to the weirdo creep of the group, but never gets enough screentime to develop that. For Jai Courtney, however, this may be the best character work of his life. He's gone from generic macho action hero to weirdo action hero. Truly the biggest leap for an actor as pigeon-holed as he is.
The characters are all awful in their own ways, and a large chunk of why they are so bad is because the movie gives them no time to breathe. No characters gets the time to fully develop because of the various impositions the movie has on it: it needs to be a blockbuster with a steady stream of action and minimum downtime that doesn't set up the next big set piece. And with six or seven wholly new characters, it is impossible to properly develop all of them. It becomes obvious early on that Deadshot, Quinn, and Diablo are the three characters fortunate enough to get some minute form of character development but their motivations are frustratingly cliche: Deadshot has a kid he loves, Quinn has Joker, and Diablo has a heavy weight on his conscience. This is what we're supposed to base our care of the characters on. It irks me to see this movie try and get those huge emotional swells when there's no fucking reason we should care about any of these characters at all. This movie just loves to try and withdraw emotional currency it very clearly does not have.
Tonally, this thing alternates quicker and wider than a pathological liar taking a polygraph. Just to illustrate this, in the first 15 minutes of the movie, it uses not one, not two, but THREE CLICHE MOVIE SONGS: "Sympathy for the Devil", "House of the Rising Sun", and "Super Freak." Look at the disparity between that: "House of the Rising Sun" gives off a feeling of tenacity or gearing up for something dark, "Super Freak" is whimsy, cartoonish, funny, and "Sympathy for the Devil" is the soundtrack for setting up conflict if the way Scorcese uses it is any indication. This film jumps between trying to be quippy fun and dark & tense conflict, and it is incredibly evident that the allegations that WB just smushed two different cuts of the movie together are true. Funny moments just don't connect and dramatic scenes are just drained of any underlying tension. It doesn't help either that there are no real dramatic stakes for anyone in this movie. The audience knows that Smith, Robbie, and Kinnaman are safe, and so has to rely on characters it spent no time developing to manufacture dramatic stakes. To condense this, "Suicide Squad" suffers from underdeveloped characters, a wildly alternating tone, and a plot severely undercut by the first two issues. WB really shouldn't have messed with Ayer's version of the film because now they have two huge stinkers on their hands. Once is a fluke, twice is an underlying problem. The only time I felt excited and audibly said wow during this movie was when I saw that Ayer recreated two of the most iconic DC covers in history within the film. I was beside myself when I saw Alex Ross's iconic Joker and Harley cover recreated with Leto & Robbie, down to the smallest detail. That almost made the $10 I spent worth it.
So, in short, don't see Suicide Squad in theaters. Definitely don't see it in any premium format and watch it when it hits HBO Go, Redbox, or USA Network. It's a disappointing mess of a film that seems to be more the result of studio meddling instead of a weak creative vision. DC and, to a larger existence, Warner Brothers really shot themselves in the foot by messing up two of the easiest home runs in history. All "Batman v Superman" had to be was passable i.e. 70% RT and it would have grossed $1 billion. Instead, we got "Murder-Man v. Moping-Man" and a horrendous first entry for this cinematic universe. "Suicide Squad" had a hell of a cast and a hell of a director and could have been the creative reboot the DCEU needed, and WB fucked it up by choosing to pander to the wackiness & humor of "GOTG" and "Deadpool" instead of sticking with David Ayer's vision. Look, I don't know what the hell must be going on now in WB HQ nor do I know how Ayer and co. really think about what WB did. All I really know is, "Wonder Woman" has to be nothing short of phenomenal for me to continue to care about this cinematic universe. And to think, this could all have been avoided if WB just ripped off Marvel.
Harley Quinn? She's actually interesting. She gets flashbacks that show how troubled she is and how prison is basically breaking her down even further. And of course all of that gets scrapped for "Look how quippy and bad-ass and one-note she is!" Margot Robbie is a talented actress and Harley could have really been a role for her to shine in; not many writers explore what the Joker did to Harley mentally as they talked nor do many really explore the semi-abusive relationship* they have with one another. (*Side note: I know a lot of writers write the Joker-Harley relationship like true love and a lot write it like its an abusive one, but it seems to me that any relationship that revolves around a psycho clown manipulating a girl to jump in a vat of acid & have a psychotic break may not exactly be the healthiest one. Again, it's up to you to decide how to interpret it.) Grade: C+
El Diablo? He's passable. His narrative arc is one of the better (read: barely competently executed) arcs in the film, and he's not awful to watch. Grade: B-
Killer Croc? He exists and say about 5 lines. That's about it. He gets no narrative arc and basically has no real reason to exist. You could literally cut out his scenes and replace his presence in pivotal ones with Deadshot or Quinn, and the movie has a chance of being better. Grade: D- because Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje somehow makes me like the character.
Katana? She exists and says about 5 lines, but they're all in Japanese. She also gets no narrative arc and definitively has no reason to exist. Cut out all 2 minutes of the movie she's in focus, crop her out of the group and action scenes, and nothing of value would be lost. At all. Grade: F.
Rope Guy? Dies in 2 minutes. Nothing more needs to be said. Grade: Can you get a grade if you existed only to die?
Rick Flagg? Dude's a talking Call of Duty protagonist. Only thing of merit is that he's supposed to have a romantic relationship with Enchantress but of course no development means we're supposed to be happy when they reunite but nobody does. He's passable, but incredibly 2-Dimensional. Grade: C+
Enchantress? Her reason to destroy the world was dumb as shit. It was like she was channeling the spirit of a 70-year-old whining about those damn kids playing Pikamens Glo on their iPhones and finds the remote to complicated to use. In her final monologue, it looked like she was belly-dancing while trying to act imposing. It was hilarious, but an awful character choice. Such a bad villain. Grade: D+
Amanda Waller? She might actually be one of the best characters in this movie which really isn't saying much, considering how awful everyone else is, but Viola Davis brings the Wall to life. Waller is infamous for being a hardass, for manipulating the shit out of everyone, for doing the things deemed unethical. And Viola Davis translates every bit of that to the screen. Waller doesn't take any shit, and she does what needs to be done. Grade: B+
Captain Boomerang? As a character, he's crap. He's meant to the weirdo creep of the group, but never gets enough screentime to develop that. For Jai Courtney, however, this may be the best character work of his life. He's gone from generic macho action hero to weirdo action hero. Truly the biggest leap for an actor as pigeon-holed as he is.
The characters are all awful in their own ways, and a large chunk of why they are so bad is because the movie gives them no time to breathe. No characters gets the time to fully develop because of the various impositions the movie has on it: it needs to be a blockbuster with a steady stream of action and minimum downtime that doesn't set up the next big set piece. And with six or seven wholly new characters, it is impossible to properly develop all of them. It becomes obvious early on that Deadshot, Quinn, and Diablo are the three characters fortunate enough to get some minute form of character development but their motivations are frustratingly cliche: Deadshot has a kid he loves, Quinn has Joker, and Diablo has a heavy weight on his conscience. This is what we're supposed to base our care of the characters on. It irks me to see this movie try and get those huge emotional swells when there's no fucking reason we should care about any of these characters at all. This movie just loves to try and withdraw emotional currency it very clearly does not have.
Tonally, this thing alternates quicker and wider than a pathological liar taking a polygraph. Just to illustrate this, in the first 15 minutes of the movie, it uses not one, not two, but THREE CLICHE MOVIE SONGS: "Sympathy for the Devil", "House of the Rising Sun", and "Super Freak." Look at the disparity between that: "House of the Rising Sun" gives off a feeling of tenacity or gearing up for something dark, "Super Freak" is whimsy, cartoonish, funny, and "Sympathy for the Devil" is the soundtrack for setting up conflict if the way Scorcese uses it is any indication. This film jumps between trying to be quippy fun and dark & tense conflict, and it is incredibly evident that the allegations that WB just smushed two different cuts of the movie together are true. Funny moments just don't connect and dramatic scenes are just drained of any underlying tension. It doesn't help either that there are no real dramatic stakes for anyone in this movie. The audience knows that Smith, Robbie, and Kinnaman are safe, and so has to rely on characters it spent no time developing to manufacture dramatic stakes. To condense this, "Suicide Squad" suffers from underdeveloped characters, a wildly alternating tone, and a plot severely undercut by the first two issues. WB really shouldn't have messed with Ayer's version of the film because now they have two huge stinkers on their hands. Once is a fluke, twice is an underlying problem. The only time I felt excited and audibly said wow during this movie was when I saw that Ayer recreated two of the most iconic DC covers in history within the film. I was beside myself when I saw Alex Ross's iconic Joker and Harley cover recreated with Leto & Robbie, down to the smallest detail. That almost made the $10 I spent worth it.
So, in short, don't see Suicide Squad in theaters. Definitely don't see it in any premium format and watch it when it hits HBO Go, Redbox, or USA Network. It's a disappointing mess of a film that seems to be more the result of studio meddling instead of a weak creative vision. DC and, to a larger existence, Warner Brothers really shot themselves in the foot by messing up two of the easiest home runs in history. All "Batman v Superman" had to be was passable i.e. 70% RT and it would have grossed $1 billion. Instead, we got "Murder-Man v. Moping-Man" and a horrendous first entry for this cinematic universe. "Suicide Squad" had a hell of a cast and a hell of a director and could have been the creative reboot the DCEU needed, and WB fucked it up by choosing to pander to the wackiness & humor of "GOTG" and "Deadpool" instead of sticking with David Ayer's vision. Look, I don't know what the hell must be going on now in WB HQ nor do I know how Ayer and co. really think about what WB did. All I really know is, "Wonder Woman" has to be nothing short of phenomenal for me to continue to care about this cinematic universe. And to think, this could all have been avoided if WB just ripped off Marvel.
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